The High Court has ordered An Bord Pleanála, Ireland, the Attorney General and the notice parties to pay Martin Harrington’s costs of the hearing on his application for leave to bring judicial review proceedings. Harrington must pay those parties’ costs of his later application for a certificate to appeal to the Supreme Court. The court made no order for the separate hearing on costs.
The judgment, delivered by Macken J. on 11 July 2006, dealt only with costs. Harrington had been unsuccessful in his application for leave to bring judicial review and had also failed to obtain a certificate allowing an appeal to the Supreme Court. The court had delivered its decision on the leave application in July 2005 and on the certificate application in March 2006.
Harrington argued that the judicial review raised serious and complex issues of general public importance, including questions about section 50 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 and European law. He said the case was a genuine public-interest challenge. The respondents and notice parties argued that the challenge was essentially based on his private interest and did not raise issues of sufficient general importance to justify awarding costs to an unsuccessful applicant.
Macken J. accepted that the judicial review raised complex legal questions of general importance. She also noted that Harrington, as a near neighbour to the proposed development, had a private personal interest in its outcome. The judge said the usual public-interest costs principles should not automatically prevent a planning judicial review applicant from receiving costs, since the statutory scheme requires an applicant to establish a substantial interest. She concluded that Harrington should receive his costs for the leave application against the respondents and notice parties.
The judge treated the later certificate application separately. To obtain a certificate under section 50(4)(f), an applicant had to establish a question of exceptional public importance arising from the decision which it was in the public interest to certify. The court had already found that Harrington did not meet that test. Macken J. found no basis to depart from the usual rule on costs for that application and ordered Harrington to pay the respondents’ and notice parties’ costs.
The orders concern costs only. They do not alter the earlier decisions refusing leave to bring judicial review and refusing a certificate to appeal.