The Court of Appeal has quashed the Residential Institutions Redress Board’s refusal to extend the time for J. McE. to apply for redress, finding that the Board used the wrong legal test. It remitted the matter to the Board for further consideration under the court’s judgment. The appeal did not determine whether Mr. McE. is entitled to an extension or to a redress award.
Mr. McE. applied to the Board on 16 September 2011, after the ordinary deadline of 15 December 2005. The judgment states that this was one day before the final cut-off for further applications under the scheme. The Board refused his request for an extension on 17 January 2013. The High Court later refused his application for judicial review, and he appealed that decision.
The judgment records that Mr. McE. said he had lived as a boy at St. Kieran’s Industrial School for Boys and had been abused there within the meaning of the legislation. He said he was illiterate and drank heavily during 2002–2005. He was aware of public controversies about child sexual abuse, but understood them to concern clerical abuse. He said he learned he might be entitled to apply when his girlfriend saw a local solicitor’s advertisement in September 2011. These were his contentions; the appeal concerned the Board’s interpretation of its power to extend time, not a determination of the underlying abuse claim.
Under section 8(2) of the Residential Institutions Redress Board Act 2002, the Board may extend the application period where it considers there are “exceptional circumstances.” The Board accepted Mr. McE.’s illiteracy and heavy drinking but considered that he had not shown circumstances that might have prevented him from learning about the Board during the relevant period.
The Court of Appeal held that the Act did not require an applicant to prove that exceptional circumstances prevented a timely application or prevented knowledge of the scheme. It said exceptionality must be assessed by reference to standards prevailing in the general public, rather than by comparing an applicant with the narrower group of potential late applicants. The court also described the Act as remedial and said the extension power should be read broadly and liberally.
The court allowed the appeal and quashed the Board’s decision because it had added a requirement not found in the legislation. It remitted the case for the Board to reconsider in light of the judgment. The Board must make that further decision; the Court of Appeal did not itself decide whether Mr. McE. had established exceptional circumstances.