The plural of counsel is counsel. (See entry no. 3 HERE). The [non-immigrant] people of Ireland should have no difficulty with this word, having been long acquainted with Our Lady of Good Counsel but they do, because they are also long acquainted with the County Council or the City Council.

There is one other point to be made about counsel. It is the advice you get; it is also the term for the person who gives that advice, or represents you, in the context of a courtroom. To clarify this; it is common that the advice is referred to in lower case and the representative is referred to in title case (Counsel).

So, our learned friends are definitely losing their wigs, (or presenting us with trundling examples of stupidity, otherwise). One influential Irish barrister in the past derided the barrister’s wig as a prophylactic, i.e. a “forensic condom”, but derision is not effective against the Rules Committee of the Superior Courts. This is the body that ensures that Ireland has no provision for launching class actions; it ensures that citizens must have the character of a General U. S. Grant or an Erwin Rommel and the resources of a Denis O’Brien if they wish to vindicate their rights in the face of State power. (See Order 84 Rule 21 of the Rules of the Superior Courts).

The Commission had taken proceedings against Ireland over a failure by the National Roads Authority and the terms of Order 84A of the RSC.

Ireland lost on both points. The ECJ condemned Order 84A on the grounds it;

“..gives rise to uncertainty as to which decision must be challenged through legal proceedings and as to how periods for bringing an action are to be determined..”

The ECJ judgment recites a plea by Ireland that:-

“.. to date, no Irish court has dismissed, as being out of time, any action challenging a decision of a contracting authority made in the course of a public contract award procedure which was brought within the three-month limitation period but not at the earliest opportunity”.

Factually, this seems wrong, or economical with the facts.

In Danninger v Bus Atha Cliath and Deepdrill Developments Ltd. [2007] IEHC, the court recited the following:-

“Leave was sought to commence judicial review proceedings on 23rd May, 2006, approximately six weeks after the formal notification of the of the award of the contract to the notice party.”

- and then ruled on a plea that the Applicant was late, in these terms:-

“I would not hold that time began to run as and from the 3rd January, 2006, when the tender documents were received, because I would regard it as reasonable that legal advice might be obtained in relation thereto. One month seems to me to be more than adequate time in which to seek such advice. Given that there is both an opportunity and, pursuant to O. 84A an obligation, to bring proceedings “at the earliest opportunity”, I would hold that an interim application should have been made shortly thereafter. That interim application would have challenged clause 4.14 of the tender conditions and should have sought interlocutory relief.”

In Danninger the applicant applied for Judicial Review six weeks after losing the tender application process. That was within the three months time limit for applications. The court ruled that time commenced against the applicant not from the ending of the tender process but from the time the applicant knew, or ought to have known, of the grounds upon which it ultimately made its application.

That was a date (as found, by estimate, by the court) to be 3rd February 2006.

That meant that time expired on 3rd May 2006. Thus, 23rd May 2006 the date of the application to court, was twenty days too late. The court however, did not rule that the time had expired for that reason; it ruled it had expired on 3rd February 2006 because the applicant had not applied “at the earliest opportunity”.

More importantly, the Constitution of Ireland provides in Article 28(3):

“1° War shall not be declared and the State shall not participate in any war save with the assent of Dáil Éireann.”

Bankrupting the nation aside, it is difficult to know of a more important matter, upon which the Government ought to be restrained, than engaging in a war without the consent of the Dail.

It is alarming therefore to consider what transpired in Dubsky Government of Ireland [2005] IEHC 442

The Applicant applied for Judicial Review of the facilities at Shannon Airport extended by Ireland to the USA for the supply of US armed forces in Afghanistan. He pleaded that these facilities were in breach of Article 28 (3).

The court declined to grant the order sought stating, inter alia,:

“Having regard to the absence of any clear line of authority as to the correct or appropriate legal definition of war, or as to what constitutes participation in any such war, or even as to what consequences flow from the failure to comply with invoked principles of international law on issues of neutrality, it is wholly appropriate that courts should adopt the same highly restrained approach to the question of whether and in what circumstances the executive arm of a government should take decisions relating to war or armed conflict or hostilities of whatever nature.”

Of course, Article 28 (3) is out of date; no State actor in international affairs follows the convention and legal obligation to “declare” war – they just wage it. Nevertheless, as a purely internal Irish affair, to take a hands-off approach to Executive action on such a question, where the Executive can seek the assent of the Dail, but does not, is not in the national interest.

NAMA is a scandal. It is a scheme to transfer taxpayers’ money to private institutions without a rational justification. The irrational justification (“long-term economic value”) was mooted by the EU Commission, but it hedged it about with many conditions. We have no idea if the Irish Government and the Irish Banks have complied with those conditions. The EU did not mandate secrecy like this.

That the SBP can publish its, presumably, bona fide report and miss the real story; that its sources are unreliable and clearly manipulative of public opinion; that NAMA clearly thinks it is acceptable in this polity to behave in such a fashion and is to be condemned for it (rather than facilitated) and that covert administration is Wednesbury irrationality and a basis for Judicial Review of NAMA is a howler of a journalistic error.

We have only to go back to 2005 to find out why it is not gearing up.

In Construction Industry Federation v Dublin City Council [2005], the Supreme Court denied locus standi to the CIF because its members were easily able, individually, to take the litigation pursued by the CIF against Dublin City Council.

The Court said;

In the present case, the Appellant claims to have a sufficient interest on the basis that the proposed scheme affects all or almost all of its members in the functional area of the Respondent, and therefore the Appellant has a common interest with its members. However, it appears to me that to allow the Appellant to argue this point without relating it to any particular application and without showing any damage to the Appellant itself, means that the Court is being asked to deal with a hypothetical situation, which is always undesirable.”

So, too, now, CIF membes are easily able to take action for themselves.

The challenge, (there will be a challenge) will come from the members or some of them.

Good luck to them.

It’s a pity they don’t seem to have done the same for parties to litigation.

Given that they are close to the persons who make up the Rules Committee of the Superior Courts, they will be unlikely, currently or in the future, to direct any criticism or complaint at the work of the Committee.

The Rules determine what the experience of going to court will be like.

The Committee, in effect, makes the Rules of the Superior Courts; the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has a nominal role but he, I venture, is busy elsewhere when the Rules get changed. (I could be wrong; perhaps it is a State secret, and the Committee does the bidding of the Minister).

In any event, the Courts Service will not be looking askance at any practice or procedure under the Rules.

The Committee is one example of bodies that, in effect, make and promulgate law. The Rules are published in the form of Statutory Instruments. Statutory Instruments are generally seen as “secondary legislation”. “Primary legislation” is to be found in the Acts of the Oireachtas. The Acts often make provision for detailed regulations to be made, “fleshing out” the bones of the particular Act. To be lawful the “regulations” must not go beyond the terms of the Act; they must express the “policies and purposes” of the Act.

The reason for this lies in the Constitution. Only the Oireachtas has the power to make law. Nevertheless, there are on occasion instances where “secondary legislation” is in fact “primary legislation”. Regulations made under the European Communities Act 1972 (as amended) have this status.

Most “secondary legislation” takes the form of a statutory instrument.

The European Communities Act 1972 aside, “ordinary” statutory instruments become law after, notionally, having been laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas.

This is an antiquated procedure to give the validity or endorsement of the Oireachtas to the instrument. Given the fact that the Executive dominates the Oireachtas with regard to primary legislation, the idea that the Oireachtas might even notice the statutory instrument being “laid” is a delusion.

Consequently, a vast body of law is promulgated every year and is open to challenge, in effect, only by Judicial Review proceedings in court.

FLAC has just issued a condemnation of the fact that, in Ireland, access to justice is denied many due to lack of resources. Free legal aid is available only to a limited number of people and for a limited number of issues.

Challenging the State in Judicial Review (particularly the Rules Committee of the Superior Courts) is definitely, practically, off that list of issues.

OK, that’s too sweeping a statement and applies to a limited number of occasions; say, debates on whether God exists or not.

It will not apply to debates on the legitimacy of tight time limits on applications for Judicial Review under Order 84 of the Rules of the Superior Courts, because there are no such debates.

The reliable Law Reform Commission published a paper examining the procedures relating to “ordinary’ Judicial Review and “statutory” Judicial Review, which can be seen HERE.

An examination of procedures, usually, assumes legitimacy.

Of course, there probably are some debates somewhere, but they are not public. My guess is that they take place in Dublin 4 or, possibly, at the top of Henrietta St., in Dublin 7.

The truth is, Judicial Review is a contraption. It’s cobbled together, dictated by circumstances and dubiously cast in the form of a general law.

See HERE for a previous reference by this writer to Irish Judicial Review.

Now, the legal jungle drums tell me that the State itself is aggrieved by the tight time limits in Order 84.

Judgment is awaited in a case where the State itself is seeking Judicial Review of a decision, time having run under Order 84.

A la W. B. Yeats, “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

(The title here is contrived; I am simply seizing on a chance to use the plural of “taxi” and show that there is such a word and such a spelling. Too often people believe, and act accordingly, that the plural of taxi is taxi’s.)

BETWEEN:

SHELL E & P IRELAND LIMITED

Plaintiff

And

PHILIP MCGRATH, JAMES PHILBIN, WILLIE CORDUFF,
MONICA MULLER, BRID MCGARRY, PETER SWEETMAN

Defendants

And

THE MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS MARINE AND NATURAL RESOURCES, IRELAND AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

Defendants to the counterclaim of second and fifth defendants

Update (20th November 2008)

1. On 18th and 19th November 2008, Judge Laffoy heard the application, on motion, of the State to determine as a preliminary issue whether the 2nd and 5th Defendants are precluded from raising “public law issues”.

2. McGarr Solicitors act for Brendan Philbin and Brid McGarry, the 2nd and 5th Defendants. Their counsel are Lord Dan Brennan QC and Mark Dunne BL. The Chief State Solicitor acts for the Minister, Ireland and the AG. Their Counsel are James Connolly SC and Charles Meenan SC. Eugene F Collins act for SEPIL. Its counsel are Patrick Hanratty SC and Declan McGrath BL.

3. The proceedings commenced in April 2005, when Shell E & P Ireland Ltd. (“SEPIL”), issued plenary summons proceedings against the defendants. Mr. Philbin was committed to prison for 3 months, effectively, on the application of SEPIL on the grounds that he had breached an injunction restraining him from preventing SEPIL from entering his land.

4. In the events that have happened, SEPIL applied for and received the leave of the court to discontinue its claims against the defendants. This happened after SEPIL had received the defences of the defendants and the 2nd and 5th Defendants had counterclaimed against SEPIL and successfully joined the Minister and Ireland and the AG as further defendants to the counterclaim. SEPIL’s discontinuance did not end the counterclaim. The counterclaim is substantial. As against the Minister, Ireland and the AG it claims that certain Compulsory Acquisition Orders made by the Minister regarding the land of the defendants are invalid. It also claims that a consent allegedly made by the Minister in favour of SEPIL, to construct a pipeline over the defendants’ land is invalid.

5. The Minister, Ireland and the AG assert that these are “public law issues”. They assert that issues like these can be challenged only under the procedure set out in Order 84 of the Rules of the Superior Courts. They assert that, that being so, those claims of the defendants are late. They assert that the claims, to be admissible, should have been made within the time limits of 3 or 6 months (at most) after the making of the CAOs and the consent.

6. The defendants deny they are confined by the provisions of Order 84 and/or its “time limits”. They say that Order 84 is not an exclusive procedure; that it cannot be used to shut out the hearing of claims against the State where the State has wronged citizens, particularly with regard to the private property of the citizen. They say, consequently, that the counterclaim should proceed to a full hearing on its merits.

7. Judgment has been reserved.

For his pains he has been told by (some) elected representatives he ought to resign.

In fact, it is difficult to criticise him. That is not to say he is not open to criticism, just that it is difficult to do so, as was seen in Ryanair Holdings plc v Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority IEHC.

Ryanair is the largest shareholder in Aer Lingus. The Government is the second largest shareholder. Ryanair discovered Aer Lingus told the Government that it was intent on changing its Heathrow “slots” from Shannon to Belfast. It did not communicate this to Ryanair. In the view of Ryanair this was a case of “market abuse” and a breach of Market Abuse (Directive 2003/6/EC) Regulations 2005 and the Market Abuse Rules and it complained to the Financial Regulator requesting action by it.

The Regulator declined to inform Ryanair what, if anything, it was doing on foot of the complaint.

The court upheld this view of the Regulator.

The court also found the Regulator is not required to make its findings public or give any reasons for its decision.

There would appear to be two consequences to this; there will not be many complaints lodged with the financial Regulator, and, it is difficult to make judgments as to his competence.

Nevertheless, the Bar Council of Ireland should strike a memorial medal to the airline for its services to the legal profession.

Look at its latest litigation outing HERE.

It issued proceedings in the form of a Special Summons and got slapped down because it hadn’t proceeded by way of Judicial Review.

Is it possible that Michael O’Leary has a jaundiced view of Order 84 of the Rules of the Superior Courts as referred to HERE and HERE?

When and where and why did that happen?