The High Court dismissed B.L.’s third application under Article 40 of the Constitution challenging his detention in Castlerea Prison for contempt of a Circuit Court maintenance order.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys delivered the judgment on 21 November 2017. He said the applicant had not proved that he was unable to pay the maintenance arrears, and had not established that the circumstances in which he went unrepresented made the detention unlawful. The order dismissed the application; it did not decide a new maintenance claim or set a fixed end date for the detention.
The underlying contempt proceedings arose from failure to pay maintenance ordered in 2007. At a Circuit Court hearing in July 2017, the arrears required to purge the contempt were stated to be €41,700. The High Court judge described the detention as coercive civil contempt: imprisonment was intended to bring compliance, and could end once the contempt was purged.
B.L. argued that he lacked the means to comply and complained that he had not been legally represented at the Circuit Court hearing. The judge noted that B.L. had volunteered to file an affidavit of means but did not do so. He also declined to cross-examine a Garda whose affidavit addressed his apparent means. The judge accepted evidence from Ms Anne Hickey, a solicitor for B.L.’s wife, that he had assets and had worked. She said the last vouched inquiry indicated 58 registered bovine animals and 19 unregistered animals. The judgment said the extent of B.L.’s interest in his late father’s lands was unclear.
On representation, the judge said B.L. had used solicitors over several years, had not asked for time to obtain representation at the Circuit Court hearing, and had not established indigency or that he had sought legal aid. The court found no basis to conclude that the absence of representation invalidated the detention order.
The judgment also found that the application was an abuse of process because the representation complaint could have been raised in earlier judicial review proceedings. The judge addressed the other arguments as well, rejecting challenges to the use of Article 40, the indefinite nature of civil contempt imprisonment, the Circuit Court’s jurisdiction, and the conduct of the Circuit Court hearing.
This was the third Article 40 application concerning the detention. A previous application had been rejected by the High Court in August 2017 and was not appealed. The current application was dismissed.