The High Court refused Antonio Casimiro Lopes leave to bring judicial review proceedings over the Legal Aid Board’s refusal of legal aid for his medical negligence case against his former GP and a pharmaceutical company. The application was heard on notice to the Board.
The challenged refusal was made on 22 July 2020 and upheld on appeal by the Board in November 2020. The Board said Lopes had not supplied a complete set of medical records and pleadings relating to separate but related proceedings against University Hospital Waterford. It considered those materials necessary to assess the merits of his legal aid application.
Lopes had brought the medical negligence proceedings in 2016 and applied for legal aid in 2019. The Board sought documents from both sets of proceedings and medical records. The judgment records that some of the requested material had been the subject of a High Court discovery order in 2019. The Board refused a second legal aid application under section 28(4)(d) of the Civil Legal Aid Act 1995, which permits refusal where reasonably required information has not been provided.
In the judicial review application, Lopes argued that the missing information was not reasonably required, that the internal appeal process was unfair, and that the Board had obtained information improperly from third parties. The judge found no evidence that new material had been given to the appeal panel or that information had been obtained from third parties. She also concluded that the related hospital proceedings were relevant to assessing the merits of the case for which legal aid was sought.
At the hearing, Lopes said the discovery issue with the defendants in the legal aid case had since been resolved by consenting to their obtaining his records directly and providing him with copies. The judge said that change had occurred after the Board’s decision and was not information available to it at the time. She said Lopes would need to make a further legal aid application for the Board to consider the changed circumstances.
The court dealt only with whether Lopes could proceed to a full judicial review. It concluded that he had not shown arguable grounds and dismissed the application for leave. It did not determine the underlying medical negligence claims.