The Court of Appeal has rejected most of solicitor Matthew Wales’s attempt to expand his judicial review proceedings concerning a professional misconduct inquiry, while allowing one additional form of relief that the respondents did not oppose.
The proceedings stem from a third-party complaint made to the Law Society in 2016 concerning events said to have occurred in 2015. The Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal found a prima facie case requiring an inquiry.
After what the respondents say were unsuccessful efforts to serve Mr Wales, the Tribunal registrar learned that he would attend Law Society offices in Dublin on 9 April 2019 for an unrelated matter. He was served there with notice of the inquiry and supporting papers. Mr Wales disputes aspects of that service and denies suggestions that he had been evading service.
The inquiry opened on 25 June 2019. Mr Wales initially did not attend, although his wife attended on his behalf. He later appeared, challenged the service arrangements and signed for a full set of papers after the Tribunal agreed to adjourn the inquiry.
Mr Wales commenced judicial review proceedings that July seeking, among other reliefs, to prohibit the inquiry. Those proceedings then experienced lengthy delays. In 2024, the High Court found approximately three years of delay by Mr Wales to be inordinate and unexplained, although it declined to dismiss his case.
He later sought extensive amendments to his grounds. In 2025, the High Court allowed some but refused others, including new allegations involving alleged coercion of his wife, improper cooperation between Law Society and Tribunal personnel, and prejudgment.
Ms Justice Máire Whelan held that those refusals were correct. Some proposed additions were repetitive, others were not sufficiently arguable, and several concerned facts known to Mr Wales since 2019 without a satisfactory explanation for the five-year delay in pleading them.
The court stressed the public interest in resolving professional misconduct complaints promptly.
The appeal was dismissed except that Mr Wales may add a declaration alleging contempt of court and breaches of confidence and administration of justice insofar as it relates to an already permitted amended ground. The substantive judicial review remains unresolved.