The High Court has refused an employer leave to seek judicial review of a Rights Commissioner’s decision to relist a worker’s unpaid annual leave claim. The court dismissed the application and discharged an undertaking that had paused further processing of the claim.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Richard Humphreys on 25 April 2016, concerned a claim under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997. The worker’s legal representative was listed as barrister Alan Haugh. The Labour Relations Commission sent hearing notices to the employer and, according to the judgment, sent the hearing date to the named representative rather than directly to the worker. Haugh later took up a role as deputy chairman of the Labour Court.
The hearing was listed for 10 September 2015 at the Silver Springs Hotel in Cork. The employer’s representatives said the Rights Commissioner indicated he would dismiss the worker’s claim for failure to prosecute. The commissioner’s evidence was that he said he would issue a decision after allowing six to eight weeks for the worker to respond. The judge considered the evidence about the words spoken but found the commissioner’s general practice, intention and file note—that the hearing had been adjourned—were uncontradicted.
The worker contacted the commission the next day, saying Haugh could no longer represent him and had not told him the hearing date. The commissioner accepted that explanation and adjourned the matter. The employer argued that the claim had already been dismissed and that the commissioner had no power to relist it.
Justice Humphreys rejected that challenge at the leave stage. He said the commissioner had not intended to make a final decision, and that the worker’s explanation could be accepted on the material provided without formal rules of evidence applying. The employer had not challenged that account as factually unsustainable in the judicial review proceedings.
The judge also held that the employer had an alternative remedy: an appeal to the Labour Court if it later lost before the Rights Commissioner. He considered the proposed judicial review would provide little practical benefit, and said refusing leave would not prevent the employer from contesting the claim through the statutory process. The court did not decide the merits of the worker’s underlying annual leave claim.
The application for leave was dismissed. The respondents were discharged from their undertaking not to process the claim further, effective from the oral pronouncement of the judgment. In a postscript, the judge recorded Haugh’s concerns about the account of his role and the notices. The judge said the additional information did not change the reasoning for refusing leave.