The Supreme Court has ruled that solicitor firms can apply for District Court summonses on behalf of bodies authorised to prosecute, overturning a High Court decision arising from a Donegal County Council case.
Conor Quinn was summonsed on 8 June 2018 to appear before Donegal District Court in proceedings concerning an alleged failure to rectify a breach of planning law. Donegal County Council was the prosecutor. The application for the summons had been made by V.P. McMullin, a firm of solicitors acting for the council.
Before District Judge Sandra Murphy, Quinn challenged the validity of the summons. His case was that an unincorporated solicitors' partnership was not a natural person and therefore could not apply for a summons under section 1 of the Courts (No. 3) Act 1986, as amended.
Judge Murphy referred that legal question to the High Court. In 2024, Ms Justice Bradley answered it in Quinn's favour. That ruling meant the summons was potentially liable to be struck out. The Supreme Court noted that several other cases had been delayed pending a final answer to the issue.
Donegal County Council appealed directly to the Supreme Court. Mr Justice Peter Charleton, delivering judgment, held that the statutory term "person" can include an individual, a corporation or an unincorporated body such as a solicitors' firm. Nothing in the legislation showed an intention to restrict applications to natural persons.
The court also stressed that applying for a summons is an administrative act. Where solicitors make the application, they do so as agents for the body legally entitled to prosecute. Here, that disclosed prosecutor was Donegal County Council.
The Supreme Court said there was no indication that amendments made in 2004 were intended to remove solicitor firms from a role they had traditionally performed in initiating proceedings for clients.
The appeal was therefore allowed and the District Court's stated question was answered yes: a solicitors' firm may apply for a summons on behalf of an authorised prosecutor. The ruling did not determine the underlying planning prosecution against Quinn.