The Court of Appeal has dismissed A.R.’s appeal against a High Court refusal to extend the time for her to seek leave to bring judicial review proceedings over Circuit Court orders concerning the care of her three children.
In a judgment delivered on 5 November 2018, the court said no application for leave to seek judicial review had been made to the High Court. Without that application, the relief A.R. intended to seek and the grounds for it were unknown, so the court could not assess whether the requirements for an extension of time were met.
The appeal arose from District Court orders dated 7 and 8 February 2017. A.R. appealed those orders to the Circuit Court, which affirmed them. She later applied to the High Court by notice of motion dated 4 July 2017, seeking more time to bring judicial review proceedings in respect of the Circuit Court orders. The High Court refused the motion on 11 December 2017.
A.R.’s appeal grounds alleged delays in District Court, Circuit Court and High Court hearings, unfair procedures in the District and Circuit Courts, and an unfair High Court hearing because the respondent’s affidavit had not been served in time. She also challenged the respondent’s reasons for opposing an extension. The Court of Appeal said the first four grounds did not relate to the application for an extension, and considered the parties’ submissions on the fifth.
The judgment set out the rule that an application for leave to seek judicial review should generally be made within three months of the grounds first arising. A court may extend that period if there is good and sufficient reason and the circumstances causing the delay were outside the applicant’s control or could not reasonably have been anticipated.
The court accepted the Child & Family Agency’s submission that time could not be extended “in a vacuum”. It concluded that, in the absence of an application for judicial review setting out the proposed relief and grounds, there was no basis to find the extension requirements satisfied. It therefore dismissed the appeal. The judgment did not determine the underlying care orders or the merits of any proposed judicial review.