A Supreme Court judge has concluded that failures in the handling of a prisoner's complaints did not make prison authorities liable in negligence for the continuation of his hunger strike.
P McD had begun a hunger strike amid escalating difficulties with prison authorities. Separate High Court proceedings established that he had capacity to make that decision and that prison officials were not obliged to force-feed him.
In the proceedings considered on appeal, the High Court found that the prison complaints system had not been operated correctly in his case. It awarded him €5,000 and declared that the governor had breached the terms of the Irish Prison Service Prison Complaints Policy introduced in 2014.
The Court of Appeal set aside both the liability finding and declaration. P McD then obtained leave to appeal to the Supreme Court on an issue of general public importance.
Mr Justice O'Donnell agreed that the negligence claim could not succeed. He accepted that prison authorities can owe prisoners duties of care, including duties to avoid causing physical injury and, in appropriate circumstances, to protect them from foreseeable harm. But he held that adopting the complaints policy did not create a private-law duty to operate that policy according to its terms.
He also found a separate difficulty with causation. The evidence indicated that P McD continued his hunger strike because his demands had not been met, rather than because of delays or shortcomings in the complaints process. His decision to refuse food was an exercise of personal autonomy which the High Court had already found he had capacity to make.
Mr Justice O'Donnell disagreed with a proposal by Mr Justice MacMenamin to grant a different declaration stating that the complaints system had not been effective in P McD's case. He said that relief had never been sought or argued and would introduce a different legal issue without the necessary evidence or submissions.
He therefore agreed with Mr Justice Charleton that no such declaration should be made.