The High Court has refused an application by solicitor John Colm Murphy to extend the time for appealing a 1999 disciplinary finding against him, concluding that the proposed appeal did not meet the necessary threshold and that reopening the matter would risk prejudice after more than 20 years.
The application concerned a finding by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal that Mr Murphy had failed to file an accountant’s report for his Killarney practice for the year ending 31 March 1997 in a timely manner or at all. The Tribunal censured him and ordered him to pay the Law Society of Ireland’s costs. No appeal was brought within the statutory 21-day period.
Mr Murphy argued that evidence had emerged late, including a December 1997 letter to the former owner of the practice, Tim Healy. The letter said a closing accountant’s report should have covered the period up to Mr Murphy’s 1996 acquisition of the practice. Mr Murphy contended that the letter supported his position that Mr Healy was responsible for accounts before the takeover and that it could have provided a defence to the misconduct charge. He also relied on evidence from his accountant, Kevin O’Reilly, about difficulties preparing the accounts and whether a qualified report would be accepted.
The Law Society accepted that previous references to two misconduct findings in the matter were erroneous: there had been one finding. It opposed extending the appeal deadline, citing the exceptional delay, the absence of a timely intention to appeal, the earlier assurances that the report would be filed, and the difficulty of revisiting old evidence. It also argued that a qualified report could have met the filing requirement.
The court said it would proceed on the basis, without deciding the point, that it had jurisdiction to extend the statutory time limit. It did not determine the merits of the proposed appeal. The court considered the letter and the competing evidence but was not satisfied that the appeal grounds reached the required level of arguability in light of the delay and the importance of the evidence to the original charge. It noted that Mr O’Reilly could have been called before the Tribunal in 1999, and that the earlier judgment in Mr Murphy’s separate damages proceedings had not found that the letter was deliberately withheld.
The judge also found a real risk of prejudice from the passage of time and concluded that the balance of justice lay against extending time. The application was refused. The court said cross-examination of a Law Society witness was not necessary. It also declined to disturb its conclusion on the separately raised delegation-of-powers point, which it considered to be jurisdictional in nature and not a sufficient basis to change the result.