The High Court has refused an applicant’s request to have his judicial review challenge to Revenue heard in private or under an assumed name, ruling that the case should proceed fully in public.
Mr Justice Conleth Bradley’s decision, delivered on 31 May 2024, concerns an interlocutory application only. It does not determine the underlying challenge to Revenue’s refusal to erase data relating to the applicant’s 2007 tax return under the GDPR’s right to erasure.
The applicant, who represented himself, argued that public reporting of the case could undermine the purpose of seeking erasure and damage his reputation as a compliant taxpayer. He said disclosure could create an impression that he was a non-compliant taxpayer. He also relied on data protection and privacy rights, and argued that anonymisation would allow the substantive case to be pursued without defeating its purpose.
Revenue opposed the application, arguing that the applicant had not established an exception to the constitutional principle that justice is administered in public. Its counsel also pointed to earlier public court proceedings concerning the applicant’s tax affairs. Revenue submitted that section 156 of the Data Protection Act 2018, which allows certain proceedings under Part 6 to be heard otherwise than in public, did not cover a judicial review.
Justice Bradley applied the principles set out by the Supreme Court in Gilchrist v Sunday Newspapers, including that exceptions to public hearings must be narrowly construed and that courts should consider whether lesser measures would suffice. He found no basis for an in-camera hearing or an intermediate measure such as anonymisation or redaction. He also noted that the applicant had brought the judicial review in his own name and had sought privacy only after leave was granted and the matter had appeared in court lists without anonymisation.
The judge held that section 156 did not apply to this judicial review, which was brought under Order 84 of the Rules of the Superior Courts. He refused both requests: that the substantive proceedings be heard otherwise than in public, and that they be anonymised.
The judgment records that a possible application for a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union, along with other ancillary matters, was to be addressed at a further hearing listed for 5 June 2024. The judgment does not resolve the underlying data erasure claim.