The High Court has struck down the 12-year prison sentence imposed on a convicted drug dealer after finding a section of anti-drug trafficking legislation to be unconstitutional. The section thus wrongfully interfered with the constitutional powers entrusted to judges regarding the imposition of sentences on convicted persons. McManus was jailed after he pleaded guilty to an offence under the 1977 Act at Cork Circuit Criminal Court in 2018. He had previously been convicted of a drug trafficking offence and in 2009 was jailed for five years. He said that the court “is obliged to follow Ellis and hold that section 27(3F) of the 1977 Act is unconstitutional.

Source: The Irish Times June 04, 2021 17:02 UTC