The High Court has rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of COVID-19 regulations that formed the basis of summonses issued to four men over an alleged gathering at a Dublin public house in April 2020. The judge said he would hear the parties on the appropriate formal order, which had not yet been made in the judgment.
Mr Justice Nolan delivered the judgment on 31 May 2024. The plaintiffs argued that the regulations were invalid because they had not received timely oversight from the Seanad, and because the Oireachtas had delegated too much legislative power to the Minister for Health, including the power to make certain breaches criminal offences. The Minister, Ireland and the Attorney General opposed the challenge.
The summonses relate to events alleged to have occurred at about 11pm on 17 April 2020. The agreed facts say all four plaintiffs are charged with leaving their respective homes without reasonable excuse, contrary to Regulation 4 of S.I. No. 121/2020. The first and fourth plaintiffs are also charged with holding or participating in an event, contrary to Regulation 5. The charges are denied. The judgment concerns the constitutional challenge; it does not determine whether the alleged offences occurred or the plaintiffs’ guilt.
On the Seanad oversight ground, the judge held that the regulations were laid before the Seanad “as soon as may be after” they were made, given the pandemic and the difficulty of forming a government. They first appeared on the Seanad Order Paper on 29 June 2020, after the regulations had been revoked. He therefore rejected the plaintiffs’ first ground.
The judge also rejected the delegation challenge. He found that the 2020 Act set out clear principles and policies, including the purpose of responding to the COVID-19 public-health emergency and protecting life and bodily integrity. He considered the powers bounded by the Act’s provisions, ministerial consultation requirements, expert advice, sunset provisions and the reasonable-excuse provision for leaving home. Taken together, he concluded, the safeguards meant the Oireachtas had not abdicated its constitutional role.
The court found the legislation and regulations constitutional. It did not prescribe a particular form of parliamentary approval for regulations that create criminal offences, saying that doing so would risk dictating how the Houses conduct their business. The judgment ends by inviting submissions on the appropriate order; it records no final order or determination of the underlying summonses.