The Supreme Court will hear no new cases on the merits this week, but it will deliver three judgments on Tuesday. The cases set for judgment are Tighe v Burke, Danske Bank v Hegarty, and Sfar v Judge Brennan. All three were argued only last week, and all three have Judge Clarke on the panel. I’d suggest that’s no coincidence.

These Weekly Previews generally cover cases set for hearing on the merits or for reserved judgment. I usually don’t comment on cases listed “for mention” before the Chief Justice on Thursdays, or those listed for motions on Fridays. But given the absence of any new hearings this week, I’ll make an exception. On Thursday, (at least some of) the parties in the ongoing case of Quinn v Anglo Irish Bank will be before the Supreme Court to discuss appeals. The case is the Quinn family’s effort to avoid being held responsible for Sean Quinn’s debts; one informative decision of the High Court in the case is available here. And on Friday, the Court will hear a slew of motions in the heavy commercial dispute named Mero-Schmidlin (UK) v. McNamara. These may include a motion by the plaintiff for an extension of the temporary stay on costs ordered at the end of the High Court judgment.

The Supreme Court will hear six cases on the merits this week. Each case will be decided by the standard three-judge panel. To enable simultaneous hearings on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings, the Court will be using its alternative courtroom — the Hugh Kennedy Courtroom. Until this week, the Supreme Court hasn’t often used this extra space in 2012.

Today, the Court will hear Kiely v Delaney. The case concerns a vendor who sought to back out of a contract for the sale of land made in 2002. (Landowners don’t often try to back out of land sale contracts these days, so the case is an artifact of Celtic Tiger nostalgia). The vendor

… keep reading Weekly Preview for 8th May 2012

The Supreme Court is in full flow this week. The Legal Diary is available here, so you can see for yourself; there are three cases set for hearing on the merits and at least three new judgments to come.

Five judges will spend Monday and Tuesday hearing ICDL GCC Foundation FZ-LLC v. European Computer Driving Licence Foundation Ltd. It’s a hefty breach of contract dispute between the Foundation, which organizes the Computer Driving Licence, and one of the Foundation’s licensees in Saudi Arabia. (Note that the Computer Driving Licence has nothing to do with motor vehicles; it’s a certificate of skill in the use of computers). After granting a licence to the Saudi company, the Foundation decided that it was illegal under Saudi law for the licensee to offer the qualification in Saudi Arabia; on that basis, the Foundation purported to terminate the contract. In the High Court, 

… keep reading Weekly Preview for 30th April 2012

The Supreme Court will be hearing five appeals this week. None seems like a major case, but the Court should make a little dent in its backlog at least. Some new District Judges will also take the oath of office (see here for more details).

Today, the Court hears Rawson v. Minister of Defence. Mr Rawson was a soldier; he was discharged from the army after testing positive for cannabis in a random drug test. He claimed that the cannabis entered his system via passive smoking. His Commanding Officer and the General Officer Commanding (GCO) rebuffed that claim, finding that there was too much cannabis in his urine for the the inhalation to be accidental. At first instance, Judge Hedigan rejected Mr Rawson’s challenge to the GCO’s decision. The High Court judgment is available here.

The only five-judge panel sitting this week is in the case of DPP v. D. I am guessing this is an appeal from Judge Dunne’s judgment last summer in D v. DPP; that judgment is available here. It’s a sex offences prosecution, and the alleged offences were committed in the 1950s and 1960s. Unsurprisingly, the defendant seeks an order preventing the trial from proceeding, on the ground of delay. Judge Dunne granted the order, stating that “for a number of reasons, the absence of medical records in respect of the applicant’s accident, the lack of specificity in respect of the time frame for individual counts and the effect of blameworthy prosecutorial delay on the applicant’s state of stress and anxiety, I feel it is necessary to prohibit the trial of the applicant.” The government is appealing from that determination, assuming I have correctly identified the case being heard in the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the Court will hear the appeal in Okunade v. MJELR. I believe the appeal in this case is from this judgment of Clark J. If that’s right, the case concerns the right of non-citizen applicants to relief from deportation.

The Court will hear two appeals on Friday. The cases are called Kadri v. Governor of Wheatfield Prison and Murphy v. Callanan. There doesn’t seem to be an electronically-available judgment for either of these cases.

The Supreme Court returns to action today, hopefully refreshed after last term’s exertions. The Court will hear several cases this week. Also in the courtroom, seven new Circuit Court judges will take their oaths of office in the presence of the Chief Justice. The Legal Diary has more details.

The main event of the week is the two-day appeal, starting on Tuesday, in Kennedy v. DPP. The case covers some of the same ground as the Mahon Tribunal Report. In 2010, Jim Kennedy was charged with making corrupt payments to public servants. The indictment says that, between 1992 and 1997, Kennedy made payments to Dublin county councillors in exchange for their votes to rezone land in Carrickmines. Like the Mahon Tribunal,

… keep reading Weekly Preview for 16th April 2012

It’s the last week of term before the Court takes its Easter break. There are four cases set for hearing and the two new judges will make their debuts.

On Monday, the Court hears Doyle v. Banville, a Dublin personal injuries case; the plaintiff was unsuccessful in the High Court. The appeal will be the first hearing as a Supreme Court judge for Judge Clarke (who will sit with the Chief Justice and Judge McKechnie). The first hearing for Judge MacMenamin as a Supreme Court judge will be on Wednesday, when he, along with the Chief Justice and Judge Murray, will hear CT v. HSE. I can’t find an electronic High Court judgment for either of these cases. The same is true of a case set for hearing on Tuesday, Weldon v. Dublin City Council.

Nor can I figure out what happened in the High Court in O’Brien v. Associated Newspapers, which three judges will hear on Tuesday. The case involves Dennis O’Brien’s libel suit against the Daily Mail over an article questioning the motives behind his charitable work in Haiti (see here). But I haven’t been able to work out what happened in the High Court last year.

Mr O’Brien is, of course, a frequent visitor to the Supreme Court. It’s worth noting, however, that — despite my guess a year ago — he hasn’t brought an action challenging the ultimate findings of the Moriarty Report. Will the Mahon Report produce more litigation? Owen O’Callaghan has been threatening another judicial review action (this one ended in a Supreme Court defeat). Even Bertie hints that he might challenge the Tribunal’s findings.  So perhaps the legal profession will squeeze a few more Euros out of this one.  There’s always the (faint) prospect of criminal prosecutions too.

It’s another quiet week in the Supreme Court. There are two three-judge hearings. One is Finn v Private Residential Tenancies Board, in which Mr Finn is representing himself. Another is in a case called Keegan v Garda Ombudsman Commission. No lower-court judgment is available online for either case.

Wednesday will begin with a ceremonial occasion. The two new Supreme Court judges–Frank Clarke and John MacMenamin–will make the declaration required under the Constitution in the presence of the Chief Justice. The precise wording is as follows:

In the presence of Almighty God I, [insert name], do solemnly and sincerely promise and declare that I will duly and faithfully and to the best of my knowledge and power execute the office of [judge of the Supreme Court] without fear or favour, affection or illwill towards any man, and that I will uphold the Constitution and the laws. May God direct and sustain me.

(Constitution of Ireland, art. 34.5.1). Neither judge will actually be sitting until next week at the earliest.

There are a few newly-available Supreme Court judgments for which I haven’t yet provided links or summaries. I have a break from teaching, so I will try to catch up over the next week or so.

The last couple of weeks have been enormously eventful for the Supreme Court. But it looks like this week will be relatively quiet for the temporarily short-handed Court. (The Court is perhaps expecting its two new judges to be on board this week–there’s a blank space on Friday for a “Mr Justice ___”.)

The big event seems likely to be the two-day appeal in ACC Bank v. Gallagher. This is a test case of sorts for many claimants–the Irish Times says “potentially hundreds”. Mr. Gallagher is just one of those who invested in a financial product marketed to him by the ACC Bank, called the “Solid World Bond”. He entered into the deal in 2003, borrowing money from the bank to pay for the bonds. As it turned out, the Solid World Bond was far from solid, and Mr. Gallagher lost a lot of money on the deal. He blames ACC bank

… keep reading Weekly Preview for 5th March 2012

This week, the Supreme Court will be continuing its clean-up operation, before moving back to a normal diet of hearings. First, the Court will see the parties in the Donegan and Gallagher cases. [UPDATE: see below; the Court is planning to deliver judgment today or tomorrow]. The cases were first argued back in March of last year, when I previewed them this way:

Irish law allows for summary eviction of local authority tenants without any real opportunity for tenants to object. (See section 62 of the Housing Act, 1966, as amended bysection 13 of the Housing Act, 1970.) In Donegan, Laffoy J.—who’s prone to lengthy judgments—concluded that the statutory regime violates tenants’ rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, and made a declaration to that effect under section 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights Act, 2003. In Gallagher, O’Neill J. made a similar declaration of incompatibility. Ireland’s legislation is similar to the UK’s Human Rights Act in that a declaration that a statute is incompatible with the Convention does not make it invalid as a matter of Irish law. Such a declaration does, however, trigger a procedure whereby the government considers compensating a party who succeeds in getting a declaration, and obviously puts pressure on the government to bring the law into line with the courts’ views of Ireland’s international legal obligations.  Murray C.J., Hardiman, Fennelly, Finnegan, and McKechnie JJ. will hear the appeals.

Of course, Judge Finnegan is retiring this week. So

… keep reading Weekly Preview for 27th February 2012

As part of “clean up” week, the Court has scheduled four more judgments for tomorrow (bringing the total to nine):

32/08 & 49/09 Glynn v Owens (preview here)

250/10 Moorview Developments Ltd v First Active PLC (and related appeals re: Cunningham group, see here)

253/11 Damache v DPP (preview here)

322 & 361/10 MJELR v McGuigan (to give reasons; preview here)

Of these, Damache — concerning the constitutionality of terrorist arrest warrants – is perhaps the most intriguing.

See this post for five other judgments to be rendered tomorrow. I don’t imagine that electronic versions of all nine (sets of) judgments will be available on the website tomorrow, but some surely will. If and when they appear, I’ll post links.

This is the last full week for Judges Macken and Finnegan, and the Legal Diary suggests that the Court is in “clean up” mode. There are no new hearings. Between Monday and Wednesday, the Court will consider the question of costs in four cases previously ruled upon by one or both of the retiring judges.

I speculated on Friday that there might be a few judgments this week in Macken-and/or- Finnegan cases. And, indeed, one such case is set for judgment on Thursday: O’Sullivan v. Law Society. I would be surprised if there aren’t more than that, not least because the Legal Diary states that Judge Macken will sit on Friday, and she isn’t currently scheduled to do so.