The High Court allowed an appeal in part against the refusal to vacate an Isaac Wunder order restricting further court applications by S.P. The court said divorce proceedings could proceed, but left the wider restriction in place while it considered whether other family-law litigation should be permitted.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Henry Abbott on 10 June 2016, concerned an order requiring U.G. to obtain leave from the President of the Circuit Court before applying to any court. The order was made in the Circuit Court in 2011. S.P. appealed after the President refused, in March 2015, to vacate it.
The parties had obtained a decree of judicial separation. Their proceedings began in January 2007, and the judgment records about 96 court applications between January 2007 and July 2014. Most related to custody and access to the children, who lived with U.G. after the separation.
The respondent argued that the appeal could not undo the earlier High Court decision dismissing S.P.’s judicial review proceedings, and that the appeal was futile because later orders had superseded some of the earlier orders. The court did not revisit that judicial review decision. It said the Isaac Wunder order remained in force and considered whether the President had been right to refuse to vacate it.
The court said such orders can control vexatious or oppressive litigation, but should identify clearly the proceedings restricted and the people covered. They are not meant to be an absolute bar: genuine litigation may be allowed with leave. The court’s task in this appeal was not to decide whether the original order had been properly made, but whether it should now be partly or fully vacated.
Justice Abbott said the restriction should be lifted to allow divorce proceedings, describing them as new proceedings that could not be prohibited in this way. He invited the parties to address whether viable litigation concerning the interests of a child under 18 should also be allowed. If they disagreed, he said he would decide that issue.
The judgment stated that the appeal would be allowed to the extent that some litigation could proceed, while leaving the order otherwise untouched at that stage. The court did not propose to set aside the order in its entirety without further consideration. The source does not record a final decision on which other family-law proceedings could continue.