L. K. appeal rejected on one ground; privacy argument remains undecided

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

The Court of Appeal rejected one ground of L. K.'s challenge to orders for her medical records on 25 November 2016. Mr. Justice Edwards upheld the High Court's interpretation of section 64(1)(a) of the Criminal Justice (Mutual Assistance) Act 2008, but said the court must reconvene to determine her separate privacy argument.

The rejected ground concerned her argument that the request amounted to compulsory third-party discovery unavailable under Irish law. The outstanding ground concerned her constitutional right to privacy and her right to respect for private life under the European Convention on Human Rights.

L. K. was due to testify in the retrial of a UK citizen accused of murdering an Irish citizen whose body had never been located. The previous trial had been aborted for unrelated reasons. During that trial, she vehemently denied a suggestion in cross-examination that a medical issue made her evidence unreliable.

The defence requested disclosure of her medical records from the Crown Prosecution Service. The judgment said this was presumably intended to renew the challenge to her reliability. A religious sister, her general practitioner and an HSE patient services officer were summoned solely to produce records for the service's disclosure process.

The Minister received the UK authorities' mutual-assistance request on 13 May 2016 and requested the nomination of a District Court judge on 19 September 2016. Judge John O'Neill was nominated, and the matter came before him on 20 October 2016. Orders requiring the records to be handed over followed on 27 October and 3 November 2016.

L. K. challenged those orders through judicial review. The High Court, with Humphreys J. presiding, refused relief on 21 November 2016, prompting her appeal.