How long after Cannabis possession do Garda have to file?

Shane92Z

Hi,

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

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.

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 !

Shane92Z

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

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.

Shane92Z

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

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?

Shane92Z

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

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.