The High Court has set aside the Courts Service Board’s decision to amalgamate the Skibbereen District Court area with Clonakilty, a step that would close Skibbereen Courthouse. Mr Justice Noonan remitted the matter for further consideration. He refused the applicants’ request for an order requiring the courthouse to remain open.
The judicial review was brought by the West Cork Bar Association and six solicitors practising in the area. They challenged the Board’s October 21, 2013 decision and sought to have it quashed. Their case included arguments that the Board had relied on mistaken savings figures and had failed to give reasons. The Courts Service said the decision concerned the allocation of limited resources, that any errors were immaterial, and that it had statutory power to close courthouses.
The judgment records three different estimates in Courts Service documents for savings associated with closing Skibbereen. The figures were €15,783, €8,000 and €13,168. The judge found that at least two figures were wrong, and possibly all three. He said the Board had no evidence before it showing that the differences were immaterial. Because the venue review project was primarily about finding savings, he found the error material: the Board might have reached a different decision if it had known the correct figure.
The judge also found that the Board had not given adequate reasons. After a lengthy consultation process and detailed submissions, the Board’s minutes recorded its approval of the amalgamation, subject to completion of refurbishment works at Clonakilty Courthouse. The minutes did not explain why the Board approved the decision, and the judgment identified no record setting out the reasons for the Building Committee’s recommendation. The judge concluded that the applicants were left without an explanation of why their submissions had been rejected.
The court held that the decision was open to judicial review because it affected access to justice, while stressing that it was not the court’s role to reassess the merits or the Board’s allocation of resources. It did not decide whether the Courts Service had statutory power to close a functioning courthouse, finding that issue unnecessary to resolve. It also could not consider a separate fair-procedures argument about whether the applicants had an opportunity to address closure into Clonakilty, because leave had not been sought or granted on that ground.
The court therefore set aside the Board’s decision and sent the matter back for further consideration. It refused mandamus, which would have required the Courts Service to keep Skibbereen Courthouse open.