View/Open - CORA - University College Cork

The demise of the Butler Order or reviewable sentence may not be unconnected also with
consequences within the judicial domain which followed as a result of the so called
“Sheedy affair”. Following on a review of a sentence by a judge of the Circuit Criminal
Court, a prisoner was released upon review, in circumstances which were politically
controversial. Eventually, the Judge in question resignedfrom office as did a colleague in
the Supreme Court. The prisoner was later re-imprisoned upon reviewbythe High Court.
The report of the Department of Justice Equality and Law Reform into the affair
specificallyrecommended:
“…the opportunity should be taken to clarify the law as to the respective
roles of the Courts and the Executive in the administration and review of
sentences” (SheedyReport 1999:20).
The practice of reviewing sentences, the report recommended, should in the light of what
happened in the Sheedycase, be reviewed as a matter of urgency (Ibid.1999:19). Although
the pronouncements of the Supreme Court in the Finn case, which ultimately sealed the
fate of the reviewable sentence, were made in 2001, the reviewable sentence was already
under critical reviewbythe policymakers at that stage.
In summary, the reviewable sentence which invariably leads to the suspension of the
remaining part of a custodial sentence might be considered a species of the suspended
sentence. In the 40 years during which the procedure was used the courts exercised a
supervisory role over the prisoner while serving a custodial sentence. Simultaneously, the
sentencing courts exercised a limiting effect upon the early release of prisoners by the
Executive by requiring the Prison Authorities to hold the prisoner in custody up to a
certain date when the court would review the sentence with a view to suspending the
remainder of the sentence. The pronouncements by the Supreme Court in the Finn case
probablysignifythe ultimate demise of the procedure.
(B2) A Custodial Sentence Combined with a Subsequent Suspended Sentence.
The second type of part-suspended sentence to emerge in Irish sentencing practice might
be described as a much more straightforward type of suspended sentence. This type of
sentence requires an initial, but definite, period of custodyto be specified and served which
period is then followed by a definite period of custody which sentence is suspended for a
281