The High Court has found that the State must make reasonable efforts to assign a bilingual Irish-English District Court judge when an accused person wants to present their part of a criminal trial in Irish.
In a judgment delivered on 20 June 2019, Ní Raifeartaigh J said Article 8 of the Constitution imposes at least an obligation to try to assign such a judge, or to do so insofar as reasonably practicable. The ruling concerns summary criminal trials in the District Court and does not establish broader rights or duties for other kinds of trials or legal proceedings.
The applicant, Diarmaid Ó Cadhla, sought judicial review after District Court Judge Olann Kelleher refused his request for a judge who understood Irish. Ó Cadhla had been charged with criminal damage and wanted to conduct his defence in Irish. An interpreter was provided at District Court appearances in Cork in November and December 2017. The judge noted that Ó Cadhla could speak and understand English, refused the request for an Irish-speaking judge, and recorded a not-guilty plea on his behalf on 18 December.
The State argued that the Constitution created no right or duty to assign a bilingual judge and that an interpreter was sufficient. The applicant argued that hearing his evidence and submissions through translation placed him at a disadvantage compared with the English-speaking prosecution. The High Court treated the dispute as one about constitutional language rights, rather than the separate question of fair-trial rights under Article 38.
Ní Raifeartaigh J said the Supreme Court’s earlier decisions had not conclusively resolved this specific issue. She distinguished the 1982 Ó Monacháin case, which she considered concerned a demand to conduct a whole trial in Irish without an interpreter. She also relied on the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Ó Maicín, which considered a request for an Irish-speaking jury but refused it because of the competing constitutional requirement for a representative jury.
The judge said there was no equivalent competing constitutional requirement preventing assignment of a bilingual District Court judge in this case. The State had not put forward evidence about resources or practical barriers. The judgment noted that Irish interpreters had been requested only a small number of times in recent years and that assigning a bilingual judge had been the usual practice in such cases.
The court granted certiorari, quashing Judge Kelleher’s refusal. It did not finally settle the wording of the declaration sought: Ní Raifeartaigh J said she was willing to hear further argument, while indicating that she was inclined to declare that the first respondent must make reasonable efforts to assign a bilingual judge to the applicant’s forthcoming District Court trial.