The High Court has refused an application to stop a prosecution on a charge of breach of the peace contrary to common law, holding that it was bound to follow an earlier High Court decision that the offence was known to Irish law.
Rory Brady sought a declaration that the charge was not an offence known to law and an order preventing the Director of Public Prosecutions from taking further steps in the prosecution. The charge sheet alleged that on 10 May 2009 at Arranmore, Church Road, Killiney, County Dublin, he threatened to stab Bo Owens and then behaved in a threatening and abusive manner, causing a breach of the peace. Those were allegations in the charge, not findings in this judicial review.
Brady appeared before Dun Laoghaire District Court on 5 June 2009. After evidence of arrest, charge and caution was given, he was remanded on bail to a later date to consider the evidence and enter a plea. He then brought the judicial review. The High Court had granted leave to challenge the charge only on the ground that common-law breach of the peace was not an offence known to Irish law.
The Director argued that the point had already been decided in *Thorpe v Director of Public Prosecutions* [2007] 1 I.R. 502. In that case, the High Court had held, in response to a consultative case stated, that common-law breach of the peace was an offence known to law and had not been abolished by the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994.
Brady’s counsel argued that *Thorpe* was inadequately reasoned and wrongly decided. Kearns P. rejected that submission, finding no basis to conclude that the earlier ruling was manifestly wrong or reached without proper argument and consideration of relevant authorities. He said the principle of judicial comity required a High Court judge generally to follow a decision of a judge of equal jurisdiction unless substantial reasons justified departing from it.
Brady also argued that the charge sheet contained two offences and was defective for duplicity. The court ruled that he could not pursue that ground because he had not received leave to argue it. Kearns P. added that, in any event, the charge sheet’s wording described the matters said to constitute a single offence.
The court declined to grant the relief sought. The judgment addressed the legal challenge to the charge; it did not decide whether the allegations were true or whether Brady was guilty.