The High Court refused an application for judicial review concerning registrations linked to 14 Grattan Street, Dublin 2, and granted the respondents’ requested relief. It held that the applicant lacked standing to bring the case on behalf of her father, and that the challenged actions were not matters for judicial review. The court also relied on the long delay.
Una Marian Murphy applied in her capacity as attorney to her father, Desmond Peter Murphy. She sought to quash a 1975 assignment of the property to Patrick Emek and a vesting certificate issued in 1986, and asked the court to direct an inquiry into alleged irregularities. She alleged that the transactions were made without the beneficiaries’ knowledge or consent and contained defects amounting to fraud. Those were allegations; the judgment did not determine that fraud had occurred.
The dispute arose from the will of Patrick Murphy, who died in 1944 and left his estate to his six children in equal shares. The judgment says the estate’s remaining asset was the premises. The respondents argued that the deceased’s interest was limited to the residue of a leasehold term under a 1926 sub-lease, while the 1975 assignment and 1986 certificate concerned separate property interests. They also argued that the application was out of time and concerned a private dispute, rather than a public-law matter.
President of the High Court Kearns said the applicant had produced no power of attorney or other document showing her father supported the proceedings, and had offered no reason he could not bring any claim himself. The court therefore found she lacked locus standi.
The judge also concluded that registering the 1975 assignment did not decide the parties’ rights to the property, and that the 1986 vesting certificate did not affect any entitlement under the 1926 sub-lease. Neither action was amenable to judicial review, and the court could not order the requested inquiry. The applicant had acknowledged that the 1975 registration had been known for many years; the judge said the delay also precluded judicial review of that action. The delay since the 1986 certificate was likewise described as enormous.
The court refused the applicant’s relief and granted the respondents’ relief. It noted that any claim over interests under the 1926 lease or the estate, or a challenge to the earlier transactions, would have to be brought in other proceedings in a competent court. It did not decide those underlying rights and observed that other proceedings might face a limitation defence.