The High Court refused Anne Kelly’s application for Mr Justice Brian O’Moore to recuse himself from further involvement in proceedings concerning Kelly Trucks Limited and a petition to wind up Kelly Trucks Strokestown DAC.
In a written judgment delivered on 17 July 2020, O’Moore said Kelly’s affidavit did not establish that a reasonable, fair-minded observer would apprehend a risk that he would not act impartially. The recusal application had been made on 27 February, after he had delivered an oral ruling refusing relief in a separate application by Kelly.
That earlier application sought, among other things, an injunction to restrain the presentation or progress of the winding-up petition and orders setting aside court orders made in 2014 and 2015. Kelly alleged those earlier orders had been procured by fraud. The recusal judgment records those allegations and does not determine them.
Kelly argued that O’Moore had shown bias by allowing counsel for Gerard Murphy, described in the proceedings as the purported liquidator, to refer to another set of proceedings, record number 2020/53 COS. She also objected to the judge hearing submissions about the petition, questioning the absence of a responding affidavit, and alleging that he had taken direction from counsel and indicated the petition should be ready to proceed.
O’Moore rejected those grounds. He said the injunction motion itself sought to restrain the 2020 petition, making submissions about it relevant to the application. He also said the court had no hidden case file beyond material parties chose to put before it, and that the alleged procedural departures had not been identified. The judgment states that Kelly told the court she and her husband co-owned a charge over the Strokestown company and owned land leased to it.
Applying principles from Supreme Court decisions on objective bias, O’Moore said legal or other errors within the decision-making process do not, by themselves, establish bias; something external to that process must be shown. He concluded that Kelly’s grounds did not meet the test and refused recusal.
The petition did not proceed on 27 February because the recusal application required adjudication. O’Moore adjourned it to 3 March 2020 so Ms Justice Reynolds could give any further directions considered appropriate. The judgment records that Patricia Kelly, identified as Anne Kelly’s daughter and a director of the Strokestown company, later asked O’Moore to hear the petition, despite having assisted her mother with the recusal application. The judgment concerns recusal; it does not decide the winding-up petition.