The High Court has dismissed Michael O’Brien’s second application for judicial review concerning his convictions for driving while disqualified and driving without insurance. Mr Justice Binchy held that the application could not reopen the effect of an earlier Court of Appeal decision, which had quashed a 40-year disqualification but left the conviction standing.
The convictions were imposed at Naas District Court on 9 May 2013, after O’Brien pleaded guilty to both offences. He received four months’ imprisonment for driving while deemed disqualified. The court also disqualified him from driving for 40 years. The uninsured driving conviction was taken into consideration, with no separate penalty imposed. The judgment records that O’Brien then had 14 previous road traffic convictions, including two for driving while disqualified and five for driving without insurance.
O’Brien’s first judicial review challenge failed in the High Court in 2014. On appeal, the Court of Appeal ruled in November 2015 that the 40-year disqualification was unjustifiable and outside the range of reasonable outcomes. It quashed that part of the order, but not the conviction. It said the Circuit Court could consider disqualification afresh if O’Brien appealed his prison sentence. The Supreme Court refused leave to appeal in June 2016.
In the second judicial review, O’Brien argued that the amended District Court order was invalid because it recorded convictions without the mandatory disqualification orders he said the law required. He also argued that allowing the Circuit Court to impose a disqualification for the first time would deny him an appeal against that penalty. The Director of Public Prosecutions argued that the application was, in substance, an impermissible challenge to the Court of Appeal’s decision, and that O’Brien could pursue the disqualification issue through his Circuit Court appeal.
Mr Justice Binchy concluded that the relief sought would, in part, require the High Court to review the Court of Appeal’s order, which judicial review cannot do. He also held that the question of quashing the conviction had already been decided: O’Brien had sought the relief granted by the Court of Appeal and could not bring a new application arguing that the result of that relief invalidated what remained of the District Court order. The court dismissed the application and did not address O’Brien’s other arguments.