The High Court Divisional Court awarded Angela Kerins two-thirds of her taxed costs, plus all transcript costs, after dismissing her judicial review claim. The costs ruling was delivered on 5 April 2017; the claim itself had been dismissed on 31 January 2017.
The order applies to the first 15 respondents. Ireland and the Attorney General were not awarded costs against Kerins and were directed to bear their own costs. The court said those two respondents had made helpful submissions on the legal issues but had otherwise not been involved in the disputes, which were between Kerins and the other respondents.
Kerins had asked the court to depart from the usual rule that costs follow the event. She argued that she had attended the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) voluntarily to assist its work, and that she was examined on 27 February 2014 about matters for which she had no prior notice. Her submissions said comments made during PAC meetings damaged her personal and professional reputation. She was absent from the 10 April 2014 meeting for medical reasons.
The first 15 respondents sought their costs. They argued that the issues did not meet the threshold for departing from the usual rule, and noted that Kerins had sought damages as well as declarations. Ireland and the Attorney General echoed those submissions, while saying the State’s involvement had been limited.
The court concluded that limited costs orders in Kerins’s favour were justified. It said her proceedings were a proportionate response to what occurred at the PAC meetings and raised issues of special and general public importance, as well as some novelty. Those issues included what legal safeguards, if any, applied to voluntary PAC witnesses, and questions about parliamentary speech, the separation of powers and the extent to which courts may intervene in legislative affairs.
The court also said the case determined that Article 15(13) of the Constitution extends to utterances in parliamentary committees as well as in the chambers. It considered that the case could have implications for the PAC, which it was told relied significantly on voluntary witness participation.
The costs ruling did not reverse the dismissal of the judicial review claim. The court noted that the case law rarely supported full costs for an unsuccessful party and ordered two-thirds of Kerins’s taxed costs and 100% of transcript costs against the first 15 respondents.