Michael Stone is a loyalist terrorist who is currently behind bars for a range of politically-motivated crimes. The thirty year tariff on his sentence was due to expire in 2018 but this ignored the fact that he had been released for a period of time after the Good Friday Agreement. Whether or not this should count as part of the time served is the subject of this application but first of all the Justices must answer whether or not these proceedings should have leapfrogged their way to the Supreme Court as a “criminal cause or matter”.

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