The High Court has struck out Christian Morris’s plenary action against six defendants, ruling it was an impermissible attempt to challenge two An Bord Pleanála planning permissions after earlier judicial review proceedings had dealt with them.
In a judgment delivered electronically on 27 July 2022, Mr Justice Barr said the action was bound to fail, frivolous and vexatious in the legal sense, and an abuse of court process. The court directed that it be struck out against Ireland, the Attorney General, the Minister for Justice and Equality, An Bord Pleanála, Crekav Trading GP Limited and Atlas GP Limited. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and Fingal County Council were not among the moving defendants named in the determination. The judgment records that Morris had discontinued his action against the third defendant, the Government of Ireland.
Morris had sought, among other reliefs, declarations that the Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Act 2016 was unconstitutional, orders setting aside An Bord Pleanála permissions for developments at Balscadden Road and the Techrete site in Howth, and orders to halt building works. The permissions were granted in March and April 2020 under the Act’s strategic housing development process.
The Balscadden Road permission had already been quashed by the High Court in separate judicial review proceedings. No appeal was pursued, and the permission was extinguished. In a separate case, the High Court upheld the Techrete permission and refused Morris’s requested relief; he did not seek leave to appeal.
Barr J held that the new action’s reliefs and Morris’s own affidavit showed it was, in substance, an attempt to undo those decisions. Planning decisions covered by section 50 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 could be challenged only through judicial review within the statutory time limit, the court said. It also found that Morris should have raised his constitutional challenge in the earlier proceedings, applying the rule in Henderson v Henderson. Separately, once the planning decisions were excluded, the judge concluded Morris lacked the tangible interest required to challenge the 2016 Act.
The ruling did not determine the Act’s constitutionality. The court gave the parties six weeks to make written submissions on the terms of the final order, costs and other matters, and listed a remote hearing for 6 October 2022 to finalise orders on the motions. It also said the final order would allow each party to obtain a copy of the digital audio recording at their own expense.