The High Court has quashed the Garda Commissioner’s decision to dismiss a serving garda, finding that serious questions about the underlying court order and the circumstances of two missed court appearances made summary dismissal inappropriate.
In a judgment delivered on 13 November 2020, Mr Justice Meenan ruled that the Commissioner could not rely on the exceptional summary-dismissal procedure where the facts were not sufficiently clear to make an inquiry pointless.
The applicant, who joined An Garda Síochána in 1994 and was stationed in Carbury from 2004, had investigated criminal groups in the area. He said he and colleagues received threats, including threats against his family, and that the threats caused psychiatric injuries. The judgment records that he was admitted to hospital in September 2015 because of a risk of suicide.
The applicant later faced a charge of making a false report about a threat. He pleaded guilty in Wicklow Circuit Court in October 2018. At sentencing in January 2020, the court found the charge proven but said it was inexpedient to impose punishment in light of the extenuating circumstances. It dismissed the charge under the Probation of Offenders Act 1907 and imposed a €100 bond, with conditions to keep the peace, behave well for three years and remain under medical supervision.
The Commissioner treated the order as a conviction and cited it as criminal conduct. The proposed dismissal also cited the applicant’s failure to attend Bray District Court on two occasions in March 2017 to receive a book of evidence.
Mr Justice Meenan said the Circuit Court order was ambiguous: its statement that the charge was proven could support an argument that there was a conviction, but its direction to dismiss the charge pointed the other way. The Commissioner had not asked the Circuit Court to clarify the order. The judge also said the allegation that the applicant missed court “without good and sufficient cause” raised the possibility that there were reasons for his absences, which the Commissioner had not investigated.
The Commissioner argued that the judicial review was premature because the dismissal process was ongoing. The judge rejected that argument, noting that the Commissioner had repeatedly ignored the applicant’s correspondence, leading the applicant reasonably to conclude that the process had ended apart from Policing Authority consent.
The court granted certiorari quashing the decision, taken around 15 January 2020 and notified to the applicant no earlier than 24 January. It did not decide whether the applicant was guilty of the disciplinary allegations or whether he could be dismissed through a later process. The parties were invited to make written submissions within 14 days on any further orders.