The High Court has ruled that a complaint under the Equal Status Act 2000 could not be brought directly before the Circuit Court. It held that the Act required a claimant to seek redress through the Equality Tribunal, with access to the Circuit Court provided through the statutory appeal process.
Mr Justice de Valera gave the ruling on 23 January 2013, deciding a preliminary issue in proceedings brought by Michael O’Callaghan against Bus Éireann/Irish Bus. The issue was whether the Circuit Court had jurisdiction to hear the proceedings at first instance. The court was asked to decide that question before, if necessary, considering an appeal concerning a Circuit Court order made in November 2005.
O’Callaghan had made a claim to the Equality Tribunal on 25 November 2003 concerning the incident alleged in his civil bill. The Tribunal ruled the complaint inadmissible on 13 May 2005. The judgment records that O’Callaghan did not appeal that decision under section 28 of the Act, which allows an appeal to the Circuit Court within 42 days and permits a further appeal to the High Court on a point of law.
Bus Éireann argued that, having not appealed the Tribunal’s decision, O’Callaghan could not start and maintain a claim in the Circuit Court. O’Callaghan submitted that he was entitled to proceed there and asked the High Court to find that the Circuit Court judge had been wrong to strike out the proceedings.
The High Court accepted the defendant’s submission. It said section 21 required a person claiming prohibited conduct to seek redress by referring the case to the Director, and that the Act provided no route to bring the matter before the Circuit Court other than an appeal. The court accepted that the Act gave the Director exclusive jurisdiction to determine decisions under the statutory scheme, subject to the appeal procedure.
The ruling was confined to the preliminary jurisdiction question. The judge found that the Circuit Court judge was correct that O’Callaghan had no entitlement to bring a complaint directly before that court under the Act. The judgment does not determine the underlying allegation of prohibited conduct.