Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

How long after Cannabis possession do Garda have to file?

  • 12-11-2023 5:06pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8


    Hi,

    Does anybody know how long after being caught with cannabis for personal possession, a Garda has to commence criminal proceedings?

    Tagged:


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,260 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    A summons needs to issue within 6 months. Once the summons has issued, there is no time limit on serving it on you, so more than 6 months may elapse before you get summonsed.

    But there is generally no advantage to the guards in delaying service of the summons or, indeed, in delaying issuing it. If they're going to proceed, you'll usually here within a couple of months. If you've heard nothing after, say, 9 months the chances that you will hear anything later are very low indeed.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 479 ✭✭BagofWeed


    I have multiple experiences in the above. It has been some time though but I remember one summons for hash took well over a year and about 5 months to be served and was stamped from the court itself as having been reissued. I wasn't making it easy for them to serve that summons on me but they caught me with a nodge up the country and sure found warrants when they checked up on me later on. So a few weeks later a really persistent cop keep calling for me and I couldn't take it after he called three times in one morning so I answered and he already had a court date booked for me !



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8 Shane92Z


    The summons was applied for 11 months and 3 weeks later. Is it still valid?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,171 ✭✭✭✭Witcher


    Couldn't have been, the Pulse system won't even generate the application outside the statute limit.

    The date you're looking at relates to something else.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8 Shane92Z


    It says the Garda applied for it on 8th August 2022 to the courts and the incident happened on 10th August 2021.



  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,260 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    The six-month time limit only applies to summary offences - minor offences that can only be dealt with in the District Court, by a judge without a jury.

    It doesn't apply to indictable offences — not even to the wide range of indictable offences that can be tried summarily in the District Court, if the defendant is agreeable to that.

    So, to know if the summons in this case was properly issued, we'd need to know exactly what offence has been charged - as in, what Act, what section number, is cited in the summons?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8 Shane92Z


    The section 27(1) of the misuse or drugs act for possesion of 1g of cannabis



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,260 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Ah, OK. On checking the legislation I see that the offence is triable either summarily or on indictment, so there is no fixed time limit for the issue of the summons.



Advertisement