The High Court has restrained the Board of Management of Little Angels Special School from continuing a stage-four disciplinary process against its principal until the court determines her substantive proceedings. The order is interlocutory: the court did not decide whether the complaints against the principal are true or how the underlying case should ultimately be resolved.
In a judgment delivered on 12 June 2023, Ms Justice Butler found that the principal had raised a fair question to be tried about whether the process had become legally unsustainable. The judge said the chairperson who brought the complaints had also prepared the report that initiated the process, creating a clear conflict of interest in the circumstances of the case.
The report set out seven complaints, including alleged failures in openness, leadership and the handling of school matters. The principal disputed the allegations and the report’s account. The judge found a fair issue about whether the report was sufficiently comprehensive, factual and balanced. Among other concerns, it recorded adverse conclusions about the principal, omitted information potentially favourable to her and did not explain why the complaints justified starting at stage four, where dismissal was a possible sanction.
The judge also considered the chairperson’s notes of his dealings with the principal, which had been kept without her knowledge. The notes recorded that he had formed serious doubts about her honesty well before the disciplinary process began. They also showed that he had discussed concerns about her with a patron nominee before she was told disciplinary action was being contemplated. The judge raised serious questions about whether that nominee could fairly sit on the Board of Management for a disciplinary hearing.
The Board argued that the principal’s proceedings were out of time because challenges to the report or the decision to begin at stage four should be subject to the three-month judicial review limit. The judge declined to decide that issue conclusively at the injunction stage and said the Board could raise it again at the substantive hearing. She noted that the principal had sought explanations and supporting material, and that the Board had not clearly confirmed who made the stage-four decision until November 2021.
Weighing the risks to both sides, the judge said the delay in bringing many complaints into the disciplinary process weakened the Board’s claim that it needed to proceed immediately. She concluded that the balance of convenience favoured restraining the process until the High Court could determine the issues raised. The judgment did not bar all future disciplinary action; it said that if the principal succeeds, any process based on the chairperson’s complaints may need to rely on a report prepared by someone independent of him.