The High Court has dismissed a man’s claim challenging the refusal of legal aid for proceedings connected with earlier family-law orders and his imprisonment for contempt of court.
Ms Justice Dunne said she found it difficult to discern a stateable cause of action in the pleadings. The plaintiff, Patrick Keena, had argued that legal aid was guaranteed by constitutional protections including equality before the law, support for the family and protection of his good name. The judge rejected those arguments and dismissed the claim.
The dispute stemmed from family-law proceedings brought by Mr Keena’s wife under the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Act 1989. Orders were made in 1990, including a High Court order giving Mr Keena’s wife the right to occupy the family home to his exclusion “until further order”. The judge noted that this wording meant the order was not final and could be revisited. She said an application to vary or set aside it might have been made if circumstances warranted, but that was not the claim before her.
Mr Keena sought legal aid to challenge what he described as a wrongful order. The judgment says he was apparently imprisoned for contempt shortly after the appeal concluded, presumed by the judge to have followed a breach of a barring order. The evidence did not establish the circumstances clearly. The judgment records that a legal-aid application was apparently made in December 1991 with assistance from a local TD, but the judge had not seen the application form.
On the constitutional arguments, the judge said equality did not require both sides in court to have the same level of representation. Although Mr Keena disputed that he had counsel in the High Court proceedings, the judge accepted the order’s record that he was represented by counsel, in the absence of cogent evidence to the contrary. She also rejected the arguments based on the family and his good name, saying they amounted to attacks on the integrity of earlier court orders.
The Legal Aid Board had agreed to reconsider Mr Keena’s position despite a letter dated 7 August 2002, but indicated that it was unlikely to change its position if the application was made on the same basis. The judge said the legal-aid scheme was not intended to fund claims that were clearly unsuccessful, unstateable or untenable. She also rejected his request to refer the statutory instrument governing the scheme to the Supreme Court.
The judgment, delivered on 15 December 2004, records the dismissal of Mr Keena’s claim. It does not make an order requiring the Board to provide legal aid.