The Supreme Court has dismissed Mark Nash’s application concerning alleged factual errors in a judgment it delivered on 24 October 2016, concluding that the matters raised did not come close to the threshold for setting aside that decision.
In a judgment delivered on 13 July 2017, O’Donnell J said the Court could correct errors of description in its earlier judgment but agreed with Clarke J that there was no basis for reopening it. The Court dismissed Nash’s application.
The earlier judgment concerned an appeal in proceedings involving Nash and the Director of Public Prosecutions. Nash’s solicitor wrote to the Supreme Court Registrar the day after that judgment, raising a possible significant factual error. A later letter to the Chief Prosecutions Solicitor identified two alleged errors and argued they appeared to underpin the Court’s conclusion that there had been no culpable delay.
The DPP’s office responded that it considered there were no material errors and that none would have changed the Court’s findings. Nash then brought a motion seeking liberty to be heard about matters arising from the judgment, along with further relief and costs. An affidavit supporting the motion said an error of fact had influenced the decision on damages and costs. It argued the Court might have reached a different conclusion if it had known a DNA sample had been held at the Forensic Science Laboratory since 1998. The affidavit also referred to an intended complaint to the European Court of Human Rights.
O’Donnell J described the motion as imprecise about both the factual matters relied on and the legal basis for the requested relief. He set out the importance of finality in Supreme Court decisions, while recognising a narrow, exceptional jurisdiction to revisit a judgment where a fundamental issue of constitutional justice is established. He also distinguished that kind of application from corrections to factual descriptions that do not affect the decision.
The Court considered that any description errors could have been addressed through correspondence and agreement. It dismissed the application; the judgment does not set aside the October 2016 decision.