The Court of Appeal has dismissed A.R.’s appeal against a High Court decision refusing her leave to seek judicial review over care orders concerning her three daughters.
In a judgment delivered on 20 December 2019, Mr Justice McGovern said the High Court judge had been entitled to refuse leave against the Child and Family Agency and the Director of Public Prosecutions. The appeal did not decide the underlying care arrangements or whether the allegations made by A.R. were true.
A.R. had sought to set aside District Court emergency, interim and care orders made between 18 November 2016 and 28 November 2017, have her daughters returned, and obtain an order preventing what she described as further harassment. Her grounds included claims that the orders relied on inaccurate information, that proceedings were unfair, and that her daughters were unlawfully detained. These were her allegations, not findings by the Court of Appeal.
The High Court had extended time for A.R. to bring the leave application, but only for a challenge concerning the Circuit Court judge’s handling of a hearing on 26 September 2017. The Court of Appeal declined to interfere with that extension, taking account of the Christmas vacation, A.R.’s position as a litigant in person and the absence of obvious prejudice to the proposed respondents.
The appeal court said the application’s grounds and supporting affidavits largely set out a narrative without identifying a legal basis for judicial review of the Agency’s decisions. It also upheld the High Court’s conclusion that the material did not establish a basis for judicial review against the DPP, whose role was not shown to be engaged by the operational actions alleged against gardaí.
A.R. argued that the Circuit Court judge was biased and had acted unfairly by refusing to recuse himself. The judgment records that she left the hearing after the refusal, and the judge then proceeded with the appeals in her absence. The Court of Appeal said previous adverse decisions alone could not establish bias. It also held that the judge had not ruled on the attendance of witnesses A.R. wanted present because she had left before that issue was addressed.
The court said the leave application did not meet the required legal threshold and found no error in the High Court’s decision. It left for another case the general question of whether an appeal of this kind involves a hearing de novo. McGovern J. said that even if he considered the application afresh, he would reach the same result on the evidence and authorities before the court. The appeal was dismissed.