The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by the Minister for Health and Children, Ireland, and the Attorney General, upholding a High Court declaration that section 260 of the Mental Treatment Act 1945, as amended, was unconstitutional. The judgment was delivered by Denham J. on 10 July 2008.
The appeal concerned a statutory requirement for High Court leave before certain civil proceedings could be brought. Under section 260(1), leave could be granted only if there were substantial grounds to contend that the person against whom proceedings were proposed had acted in bad faith or without reasonable care. The Supreme Court said the case concerned the provision’s constitutional validity, not the merits of the plaintiff’s outstanding damages claim.
The plaintiff’s statement of claim described three periods of involuntary admission to St John of God Hospital, Stillorgan: 25 February to 16 May 1984; 29 January to 16 April 1987; and 17 January to 7 February 1991. He had applied for leave under section 260(1) to bring proceedings and was refused. The judgment does not determine the facts or merits of his damages claim.
The High Court had held the section unconstitutional, reasoning that restricting access to court to two specified grounds impermissibly interfered with the judicial domain under Articles 6 and 34 of the Constitution. The State appealed that ruling.
The Supreme Court agreed with the High Court. It said that requiring leave or substantial grounds is not inherently unconstitutional, but this provision confined access to claims involving bad faith or lack of reasonable care, even where neither ground formed part of the intended litigation. The Court considered the restriction disproportionate: although the Act’s protective purpose was legitimate, the provision was arbitrary and unfair and did not impair constitutional rights as little as possible.
The Court affirmed the High Court order on a limited basis. It treated the constitutional defect as lying in the specified grounds in section 260(1). Its treatment of subsections (2) and (3) was consequential to that defect; it made no separate finding that either subsection had an inherent infirmity. The Act of 1945 had been repealed, and the judgment said a replacement provision in the Mental Health Act 2001 was not in issue in the appeal.