The High Court declared unconstitutional a provision of the Mental Treatment Act 1945 that restricted civil proceedings over acts purportedly done under the Act to cases where the court was satisfied there were substantial grounds to allege bad faith or a lack of reasonable care.
In a judgment delivered on 7 December 2004, Miss Justice Mella Carroll ruled that section 260, as amended, impermissibly interfered with the judicial domain, contrary to Articles 6 and 34 of the Constitution. The declaration was the relief sought by Louis Blehein in proceedings against the Minister for Health and Children, Ireland and the Attorney General.
The judgment records that Mr Blehein, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was admitted to St John of God Hospital in Stillorgan on three occasions between February 1984 and February 1991. He had previously applied for, and been refused, leave to challenge his committal. In an earlier case, the Supreme Court said that a constitutional challenge to section 260 should be brought in new proceedings; Mr Blehein then commenced this action by plenary summons.
He argued that the statutory conditions denied access to justice and imposed requirements that were impossible to meet. The State opposed the challenge, submitting that the section was a legitimate restriction, taking account of the plaintiff’s difference in capacity. It also argued that the provision curtailed rather than prohibited court access and did not apply to judicial review or habeas corpus.
Carroll J distinguished section 260 from statutory rules requiring “substantial grounds” for judicial review. Those rules left the High Court discretion to assess which grounds merited consideration. Section 260, by contrast, confined access to two specified grounds: bad faith or lack of reasonable care. The judge held that the legislature could require proposed judicial review grounds to be substantial, but could not limit access to the High Court to those two grounds.
The judgment’s final order declared section 260 of the Mental Treatment Act 1945, as amended, unconstitutional having regard to Articles 6 and 34. The judge did not determine the separate arguments concerning sections 185 and 186, ruling that they were outside the scope of this case; the judgment records that other proceedings concerning those provisions remained extant.