The Court of Appeal has refused an application by a married couple to extend the time to appeal a High Court order striking out their proceedings against the Minister for Justice. The court also ordered them to pay the Minister’s costs of the extension application.
In a judgment delivered on 15 October 2024, Ms Justice Faherty said the couple had 28 days from the perfection of the High Court order on 1 December 2023 to appeal. They did not appeal within that period. Their application to extend time was made in April 2024.
The proceedings, issued in 2018, included allegations concerning the couple’s health, housing application, disability allowance, nationality and family documents. The High Court had dismissed the case as an abuse of process, finding no credible basis for several claims and that others were outside the Minister’s remit or statute-barred. The Court of Appeal was hearing only the request to extend the appeal deadline; it was not conducting an investigation into the underlying allegations.
The first appellant said a Russian-speaking interpreter at the High Court hearing had told them they could not appeal. The Minister disputed allegations that the interpreter had been instructed to mislead the couple. Justice Faherty said she was prepared to take the claimed communication at its highest for the purpose of considering the application, while accepting the Minister’s denial of any instruction. She said the evidence did not establish that the Minister had caused the alleged miscommunication.
The court considered the established criteria for extending time, including whether the applicants had a bona fide intention to appeal within the deadline, whether there was a relevant mistake, and whether an arguable appeal ground existed. Justice Faherty concluded that the couple had not shown that the High Court judge erred or put forward an arguable ground of appeal. She refused the extension.
Justices Binchy and Pilkington agreed with the judgment. The court ordered costs to the Minister for this application only, noting that the matter before it was the request to extend time.