The Supreme Court has refused an application to move A.C. from a Cork nursing home to the care of her son while an appeal about the legal basis for her detention is pending. The ruling concerns interim relief only and does not decide the appeal.
A.C. is a ward of court. A High Court order of 23 July 2018 directed that she remain an inpatient at St Finbarr’s Hospital in Cork pending further order. In August, the High Court found that her detention was in accordance with law. The Supreme Court had granted leave for a direct appeal, confined to a challenge to the validity of the wardship orders on constitutional and European Convention grounds.
Her son, P.C., sought a stay of the August ruling and an order allowing his mother to live with him pending the appeal. At the hearing, his submissions focused on those requests. He argued, among other things, that the wardship jurisdiction was invalid and that his mother’s care and medication were harming her. He relied on recordings of conversations which, he said, showed she could express her wishes and wanted to go home.
The HSE accepted that the appeal raised an arguable issue but opposed changing the current arrangements. It relied on a consultant physician’s affidavit and report dated 9 November 2018. The report said A.C., then 96, had epilepsy and was at severe risk of seizures without ongoing anti-seizure medication. It also described dementia, limited capacity to decide where to live, and care needs which, in the physician’s view, required a supervised nursing home. P.C. disputed that evidence, including the physician’s impartiality, but provided no opposing medical evidence.
The court said the physician’s evidence was relevant to A.C.’s present condition during the period before the appeal, rather than to whether the earlier High Court judgment was correct. It found no basis at this interim stage to disregard the sworn evidence. The court also explained that staying the August ruling would not set aside the separate July wardship order or, by itself, allow A.C. to leave the home.
In substance, the court treated the application as a request for a mandatory order giving the practical relief sought on appeal before that appeal was heard. It said such relief would normally require compelling reasons, and noted that moving A.C. and potentially returning her to the home if the appeal failed could be disruptive. The appeal’s merits remain for the full hearing.
The court concluded that the balance of justice and convenience favoured A.C. remaining in the nursing home pending the appeal. It refused the relief sought and said an early hearing of the appeal was the appropriate way to address P.C.’s legal arguments.