The High Court has rejected Barry Sheehan’s attempt to pursue jurisdictional challenges to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) in his statutory appeal, holding that those issues belonged in judicial review proceedings and that his conduct had in any event waived his right to raise them at this stage.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Kelly, President of the High Court, on 31 October 2017, gives reasons for a preliminary ruling made on 10 October. The court considered objections by the SDT and the Law Society of Ireland to Mr Sheehan’s effort to litigate those jurisdictional issues as part of his appeal.
The appeal arose from the SDT’s finding that Mr Sheehan committed professional misconduct by threatening to destroy files belonging to former clients Bernard and Viola Bingham unless they settled his bill of costs. The tribunal found him not guilty of a separate allegation that he refused to return the file or allow them access. It censured him and directed him to pay €5,000 to the Solicitors Compensation Fund and up to €750 to the Binghams for their attendance before the tribunal.
The court had already heard and dismissed Mr Sheehan’s appeal on the merits of the SDT’s findings. The remaining issues concerned his claims that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction and had breached procedural requirements. The SDT and the Law Society argued that such challenges could not be addressed through the statutory appeal, which provides for a fresh hearing on the merits, and should instead have been brought by judicial review.
Mr Justice Kelly agreed. He said the statutory appeal was not a substitute for, or a parallel route to, judicial review of the tribunal’s jurisdiction or conduct. He also found that Mr Sheehan had raised his jurisdiction objection from the outset, knew judicial review was the appropriate route, but did not bring such proceedings. Instead, he participated in the SDT hearings over several days and pursued an appeal after the adverse finding.
The court held that this conduct barred him from raising the jurisdictional objections in the appeal. Its ruling dealt with the preliminary objections only: it did not reopen or alter the earlier dismissal of the appeal on its merits. The judgment records that the SDT and Law Society had also filed submissions contesting the substance of Mr Sheehan’s jurisdictional arguments, but the court’s decision on the preliminary objections meant those issues were not entertained in this ruling.