What Giovanni did next

The controversial Italian lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano is seeking early release for approximately 100 inmates under a legal loophole in Irish law, Hot Press can exclusively reveal.

Bizarrely, up until recently female prisoners were entitled to one third remission on their sentences while a male inmate could only seek a reduction of quarter for good behaviour. The Prison Act of 1947 – legally valid until 2007 – stated: “A female prisoner sentenced to penal servitude shall be eligible, by special industry and good conduct, to earn a remission of a portion of her sentence not exceeding one-third of the whole sentence.” While this unusual discrimination against male prisoners was rescinded under the Prison Act of 2007, which replaces the Prison Act of 1947 – all prisoners, regardless of gender, now have a right to remission of one-quarter of their prison sentence – Di Stefano says females imprisoned prior to 2007 are still entitled to the one third-remission.
This, he argues, is a form of discrimination. Di Stefano is now seeking the same entitlement for all male prisoners incarcerated prior to the 2007 changes in prison regulations.
Di Stefano – dubbed The Devil’s Advocate for representing some of the world’s most notorious villains, such as Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic – says he came across this inequity, which he points out is illegal under the European Convention on Human Rights and the Irish Constitution, when the Prison Rules were revamped in 2007.
Initially, Di Stefano was planning to use this loophole as a legal argument for seeking a one-third reduction for his most famous Irish client, John Gilligan, serving a 20-year sentence in Portlaoise Prison for importing marijuana. But once word of Gilligan’s legal argument spread in Portlaoise Prison, Di Stefano was inundated with inmates who now want to seek a third remission under this loophole. Within the last few weeks, he has also been approached about representing inmates in Mountjoy, Limerick Prison and the Midlands.
Apart from Gilligan, the list of clients also includes the infamous political prisoner Colm O’Shea – whose case is explored in this issue’s highly controversial ‘Hot Press Interview’ with Paddy McCann – and Philip Houlihan, sentenced to 15 years after being caught with an estimated €8 million worth of ecstasy, which was described as the largest ever seizure of the drug in the State, back in 2003.
“While I was looking into John Gilligan’s case, I came across this blatant discrimination when the law changed. It’s not an idea that I came up with, but a submission in law and the law must be applied – not interpreted. I now have nearly 100 names since I wrote to the Minister for Justice regarding Gilligan. Others soon joined and are still joining. Men must be treated equal to women and if that means one third remission for all pre-2007 cases, then so be it,” Di Stefano maintains. “My clients are still being prejudiced and discriminated against when compared with female prisoners. Also, those jailed and only given one quarter remission since 1972 when Ireland joined the EU also have a case against the Irish government for being kept too long in jail.”
Di Stefano told Hot Press that he’ll take a class action case against the State if he does not receive a positive response from the Department of Justice.
“If necessary I will take the matter to court, but I hope the Minister will spare the already overburdened taxpayer more expense defending an unarguable submission. Class action is a good possibility,” he says.
Hot Press has seen a letter the lawyer has sent to the Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern. In it, Di Stefano refers the Minister to the fact that there are “many references contained within the Irish Constitution accentuating the desires and mandate of the founding fathers of Ireland ensuring that discrimination between the sexes was not a policy to be adopted.”
Also in the legal missive, Di Stefano tells the Minister: “We must now ask that you urgently and forthwith address the question of parity between the sexes and to apply to our clients the same one third remission that has been applied to female prisoners routinely, thus avoiding any litigation.”
Di Stefano also hints that he might consider taking this legal battle to the European Courts. In the letter to Ahern, he refers to the European Convention of Human Rights Article 14, which states: “The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.”
Di Stefano signs off the letter by stating: “The application of the law is a fundamental aspect of jurisprudence worldwide. We must thus request of you a re-calculation of release dates for our clients some of whom arguably are now unlawfully detained.”
As legal arguments go, there’s no disputing that Di Stefano has an intriguing case in the making. It will be interesting to hear the Minister for Justice’s response.