The High Court quashed a District Court judge’s refusal to consider whether Harry Cassidy was entitled to an unredacted version of sworn information used to obtain orders freezing about €180,000 in accounts associated with his pension scheme.
Mr Justice Barr ruled that a judge hearing an application under section 19 of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010 had jurisdiction to decide whether a party was entitled to the full document. The court did not order disclosure. It held that the applicant was not entitled to see the redacted material as part of such an application.
The funds were held in two Bank of Ireland accounts belonging to the Magpie Private Pension Trust, a self-administered scheme established to administer Mr Cassidy’s pension. He was the sole beneficiary, and the trustees were John Mulholland and Ruth Woods. The judgment describes him as a former chief executive of Custom House Capital Limited, which was placed into liquidation in 2011 after a Central Bank application and investigation.
The accounts had been subject to freezing orders under section 17 of the 2010 Act from July 2012, with further orders made monthly, according to the judgment. The Gardaí’s notices said the orders enabled an investigation into whether transactions involving the accounts might comprise or assist money laundering or terrorist financing. The judgment makes no finding that Mr Cassidy or the funds were involved in either activity.
Mr Cassidy sought to challenge the orders and requested the sworn information supporting them. He received a version with its third page redacted. A District Court judge refused a further disclosure application in November 2012, treating it as an interim request for information rather than a full section 19 application and concluding the court lacked jurisdiction to grant it. Mr Cassidy then sought judicial review of that refusal.
The High Court said the person seeking to lift a freezing order bears the burden of showing that the statutory grounds for it do not, or no longer, apply. The applicant could set out on affidavit where the funds came from; the Gardaí could then respond by affidavit with the basis for maintaining the order. The court said the Gardaí could not rely at the section 19 hearing on material that had not been made available to the applicant. To safeguard equality between the parties, the application should be heard by a District Court judge who had not previously considered a section 17 application involving the same funds.
The judgment also found that section 17 hearings held in private before a 2013 amendment breached the constitutional requirement that justice be administered in public. It granted no remedy for that breach: the earlier orders had expired and been replaced by orders made in compliance with the law. The judgment does not lift any freezing order or determine a section 19 application on its merits.