The High Court has dismissed Olivier Alary’s judicial review challenge to three convictions for casual trading without a licence in Bantry, finding that he had identified no legal basis to quash them.
Mr Justice Niamh Hyland delivered judgment on 16 March 2022. The challenge concerned convictions imposed by Bantry District Court on 24 July 2019 for offences on 26 November 2018, 6 December 2018 and 24 January 2019. The fines were €500, €1,000 and €1,500 respectively. Charges relating to alleged failures to comply with an authorised officer were taken into consideration.
Alary did not appeal the convictions. He instead sought judicial review, arguing among other things that the summonses used an incorrect address, that documents he had submitted were not put before the District Judge, and that the court lacked jurisdiction. He also challenged the Casual Trading Act 1995 and Bantry’s trading bye-laws, and argued that he was not bound by the bye-laws because he had not consented to them.
The judge found the address on the summonses did not invalidate them: Alary had been personally served and had participated in the District Court hearing. She also found that the documents he said had been withheld were given to the judge, and rejected the jurisdiction and consent arguments. The challenges to the Act and bye-laws had already been rejected in earlier proceedings, she said, and she declined to entertain them again. She also rejected the argument that the absence of similar bye-laws in other towns made Bantry’s rules unlawful.
Alary complained that other traders were not being stopped by the council. The judge said no factual or evidential basis for that claim had been identified and refused to admit photographs he sought to introduce at trial, citing the lateness of the application and the absence of leave to raise those matters.
The judgment dismissed the judicial review proceedings. The judge proposed making a costs order in favour of both respondents, but invited written submissions on costs by 24 March 2022. Final orders were listed for a remote hearing on 30 March 2022 at 10am. The judgment therefore records the dismissal and the proposed costs order, with costs and final orders still to be addressed at that later hearing.