The High Court declined to award costs to either party against the Labour Court after an earlier judgment quashed a Labour Court award in favour of Mohammad Younis. The costs judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Hogan on 26 October 2012, applied a prior ruling that gave quasi-judicial bodies a degree of immunity from costs orders.
In the earlier proceedings, the court set aside the award because it found that the employment contract between Amjad Hussein and Younis was substantively illegal: Younis, a Pakistani national, did not have the work permit required under the Employment Permits Act 2003. The judge concluded that the Rights Commissioner and, in turn, the Labour Court lacked jurisdiction to hear claims under employment and working-time legislation for arrears of wages.
Hussein sought costs against Younis and later against the Labour Court. Younis also sought costs against both Hussein and the Labour Court. The Labour Court did not participate in the main hearing, but opposed an order requiring it to pay costs.
The judge made no costs order against Younis, saying that would add to the injury described in the Rights Commissioner’s findings about his treatment at work. He also made no order between Hussein and Younis: Hussein had succeeded in the judicial review, and the judge considered it inappropriate for him to pay Younis’s costs.
Hogan said he would have awarded costs against the Labour Court in favour of either man if he had jurisdiction to do so. He noted that the Rights Commissioner had found Younis was subjected to appalling workplace treatment, while Hussein had won an important legal victory. But the judge concluded he was bound to apply the High Court’s 2009 ruling in Casey v. Private Security Appeals Board.
That ruling treated a quasi-judicial body as analogous to a judge and generally immune from costs orders where it acted without bad faith or impropriety. Hogan said the Labour Court had exercised quasi-judicial powers, there was no suggestion of impropriety, and it had taken no active step in the main proceedings. He therefore held that he could not award either Younis or Hussein their judicial-review costs against the Labour Court. The judgment addressed costs only; the underlying award had been quashed in the earlier decision.