The Court of Appeal has refused Stephen Murphy’s appeal against a High Court decision denying him leave to bring judicial review proceedings over the handling of a complaint against a Garda. It affirmed the High Court order and proposed that Murphy pay the costs of GSOC and the Garda Commissioner in the appeal, as well as the High Court costs. Murphy has 14 days to seek a further hearing on costs; otherwise, the proposed costs order will be made.
Murphy’s complaint followed an incident on 25 August 2017, when a contractor’s JCB entering land beside property owned by Murphy and his sister near Drimoleague, County Cork, struck a phone line and cut service to their home. Murphy alleged other damage and road traffic and health and safety breaches. The court made no finding on those claims. Murphy also alleged that Garda Whitty failed to investigate properly and treated the matter as a civil dispute.
GSOC found the complaint admissible and referred it to the Garda Commissioner for an unsupervised investigation under the Garda Síochána Act 2005. Superintendent O’Mahony investigated and found no breach of discipline by Garda Whitty. Murphy sought a statutory review; GSOC concluded in July 2019 that the investigation was appropriate and the evidence supported its finding. GSOC’s review was limited to assessing the investigation and did not reopen it.
The High Court refused Murphy leave to seek judicial review in July 2020. On appeal, the Court of Appeal considered the leave threshold: whether Murphy had shown a stateable, arguable case for the relief sought. It agreed that challenges to GSOC’s original referral of the complaint, O’Mahony’s appointment and the decision not to prosecute were brought too late. It said the referral and appointment challenges also lacked an arguable basis.
The court considered separately the challenge to the February 2019 disciplinary finding and GSOC’s July 2019 review. It said Murphy had a compelling basis to seek an extension of time to challenge the disciplinary finding, because he had pursued the statutory review before going to court, but found it unnecessary to decide the time issue. The court concluded that the materials did not establish an arguable case based on fair procedures, failure to give reasons or irrationality. It also found no supporting evidence for the allegations of bias against GSOC or the Garda officers.
The ruling concerned whether Murphy could proceed with judicial review, not a fresh determination of the underlying complaint or the alleged property damage. The court refused leave to challenge the July 2019 GSOC review and dismissed the appeal.