The High Court dismissed B.W.’s action against Ireland and the Attorney General, finding that it sought to relitigate claims and issues disposed of in earlier proceedings. Mr Justice Allen concluded that the action was an abuse of the court’s process.
The plenary action, begun in January 2018, sought declarations, injunctions and other orders concerning alleged breaches of constitutional and human rights obligations. It also challenged provisions of the Child Care Act 1991 and the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004. These were claims made by B.W.; the court did not decide their underlying allegations in this judgment.
The case arose from child care proceedings brought against B.W. and his wife in the District Court in 2008. Two of their children were taken into emergency care, and the proceedings concluded in October that year. B.W. later complained about how those proceedings had been conducted and alleged that offences had occurred, which he said were not investigated because of the in camera rule.
The defendants argued that the 2018 claims were misconceived, statute barred and overlapped with earlier cases. Allen J reviewed, among other matters, a 2009 plenary action brought by B.W., his wife and their two children. In 2012, the claims against Ireland, the Attorney General and the Minister for Justice were struck out by consent. The family’s damages claim against the Health Service Executive was later settled, with the settlement approved by court order in March 2013.
The judge also considered B.W.’s 2011 application for judicial review. Although the High Court refused leave, the Supreme Court allowed his appeal in 2016 and granted leave to seek one specific declaration: that an alleged criminal offence occurring during civil proceedings held otherwise than in public could be investigated and prosecuted as prescribed by law. The Supreme Court did not grant leave for the other relief B.W. had sought. The resulting judicial review proceedings were reported as ready or almost ready for a hearing date.
Allen J held that the 2018 claims were substantially the same as public law remedies sought in the 2009 action and that the grounds were the same. He found that the Supreme Court had finally determined the claims raised in the 2011 judicial review proceedings, while the 2009 consent order created an estoppel concerning claims against Ireland and the Attorney General. He therefore dismissed the 2018 case. The judgment does not determine the separate judicial review proceedings for which the Supreme Court had granted limited leave.