The High Court has dismissed a father’s application for leave to challenge child-care decisions by judicial review, concluding that the Circuit Court acted lawfully and that other courts provide the proper route for disputes about care and access.
In a judgment delivered on 16 May 2024, Mr Justice Garrett Simons said the father’s proceedings, brought in October 2023, appeared to be outside the three-month time limit for challenging the Circuit Court’s order of 20 June 2023. The judge nevertheless considered the application on its merits because it concerned a young child who had spent most of their life in care, the papers suggested the father may have had difficulty obtaining the order, and the leave application had been fully argued.
The Circuit Court had struck out the father’s appeal and affirmed a District Court care order made in April 2022. At the Circuit Court hearing, the father’s appeal against the full care order was withdrawn and the dispute narrowed to access arrangements. His counsel sought three hours of unsupervised access every two weeks. The Circuit Court directed that any further access application should be made to the District Court.
Mr Justice Simons found no basis to interfere with that decision. He said it was reasonable for the Circuit Court to direct the father to seek access under section 37 of the Child Care Act 1991. The father had argued that an earlier Circuit Court order allowed unsupervised access for three and a half hours. The judge said that order provided for supervised access of up to that duration, was time-limited, and had been overtaken by later events.
The judgment said the father could not use these proceedings to challenge the District Court’s April 2022 care order. He had appealed that order but withdrew the appeal against the care order, and a judicial review challenge to it would also be time-barred. The judge said the District Court, with a right of appeal to the Circuit Court, was the appropriate forum to consider an application for revised access or variation of the care order after a detailed hearing.
The father’s requests for inquiries into social workers, the agency’s solicitor and the lower court judges were also refused. The judge found nothing in the papers indicating wrongdoing by the social workers and said judicial review did not give the High Court a general role in supervising their professional conduct. He also declined to direct production of a District Court transcript because it was not needed to resolve the leave application.
The application for leave to apply for judicial review was dismissed in its entirety. The judge’s provisional view was that each side should bear its own costs, but the Child and Family Agency was given until 10 June 2024 to make submissions seeking a different order, after which the father would have 14 days to respond.