The High Court has struck out a man’s defamation proceedings against a barrister, a law firm, its partners and directors of Tanager DAC over statements made during related Circuit Court proceedings. It held that the statements were protected by absolute privilege, regardless of whether they were false, malicious or unrelated to the application being heard.
In a judgment delivered on 5 May 2023, Ms Justice Eileen Roberts said the claim was bound to fail and amounted to an abuse of process. She did not decide the factual dispute about what was said or whether the statements were true.
The plaintiff alleged that, at Mullingar Circuit Court on 7 November 2019, the barrister accused him of using an altered land registry instrument concerning a property owned by the plaintiff and his wife, Elena Moyne. He said the statements damaged his reputation and claimed defamation, malicious falsehood and breaches of constitutional rights.
The defendants denied the allegations and said the barrister had drawn the Circuit Court’s attention to differences between versions of the instrument during a hearing about the plaintiff’s request for a recording of an earlier hearing. They argued that statements made in court were protected by section 17(2)(g) of the Defamation Act 2009.
The judge said she could assume, for the purpose of deciding the strike-out application, that the plaintiff could prove the statements were untrue, defamatory, malicious and irrelevant. Even on that assumption, she held, absolute privilege provided a complete defence to the defamation claim. She also rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the Criminal Justice (Perjury and Related Offences) Act 2021 displaced that protection. The judgment did not determine whether perjury had occurred.
The defendants also sought an Isaac Wunder order requiring the plaintiff to obtain permission before bringing further proceedings against them over the same subject. The judge declined to make one, noting this was the first set of proceedings the plaintiff had brought against these defendants and that there was no evidence he intended to sue them again. She said a future pattern of abusive litigation could support a later application for such an order.
The proceedings were struck out in full. The court listed the matter for mention on 17 May 2023 so the parties could make submissions on costs and any other issues arising from the judgment.