The High Court quashed a District Court judge’s decision to extend an existing legal aid certificate to cover a separate set of charges. It said the regulations provided for considering whether two certificates should count as one, but only after both had been granted.
The judicial review concerned Miroslav Horvath, who had legal aid for a public order charge brought by Garda Brendan Gilligan. That charge was later struck out. Horvath also faced road traffic summonses prosecuted by Garda Kevin Kennedy. On 1 November 2012, he pleaded guilty to those summonses and was convicted, fined and disqualified from driving for four years.
After the plea, Horvath’s solicitor, Aonghus McCarthy, applied for a separate legal aid certificate for the road traffic matters. The District Court judge instead extended the certificate already granted for the public order charge. McCarthy argued that the charges arose from different incidents, dates and prosecuting gardaí, and that the legal aid legislation did not provide for extending a certificate in this way.
The State argued that the challenge offered no practical benefit. It relied on Regulation 7(4) of the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Regulations 1965, under which, when two or more certificates have been granted and the cases are heard together or in immediate succession, one certificate is generally treated as having been granted for the purposes of the regulations. The State submitted that the same solicitor represented Horvath in both matters and that payment would therefore be limited to one certificate.
The High Court found that Horvath was entitled to legal aid for both sets of charges. It held that Regulation 7(4) could apply only where two or more certificates had first been granted. Because the District Court judge had extended the existing certificate rather than grant a second one, Horvath’s legal representatives had lost the opportunity to argue that there was good reason to treat the certificates separately.
The court granted certiorari, quashing the order that extended the certificate. It said the matter could be remitted to the District Court for further submissions under Regulation 7(4). The judgment did not decide whether the District Court should ultimately treat two certificates as one or allow separate payment.