The High Court refused Joseph Lavery permission to bring a proposed ex parte application, finding it disclosed no statable ground for relief, was brought too late and sought substantive orders through an inappropriate procedure.
In a judgment delivered on 26 February 2020, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys considered an unstamped draft ex parte docket dated two days earlier. It was lodged in existing judicial review proceedings against the Director of Public Prosecutions, identified as 2016 No. 228 JR.
Lavery had been made subject to an Isaac Wunder order in those proceedings on 4 July 2016. Under that order, he needed permission to issue the proposed application. The draft sought, among other relief, orders placing two District Court judges in contempt and expenses relating to the motion.
An affidavit sworn on 24 February 2020 complained that criminal proceedings against Lavery had been adjourned in May 2016 and February 2017 despite a High Court stay. The judge said adjournments did not breach the stay. He added that even if there had been a breach, contempt proceedings against the judges would not be the appropriate remedy, and any application would have needed to be made in a timely way.
The court gave four independent reasons for refusing permission: it described the proposed application as scandalous and vexatious; found no statable ground for the relief sought; found it was not brought in time; and held that the substantive relief sought could not be obtained ex parte. The docket’s procedure was therefore inappropriate because it sought substantive relief rather than leave to seek that relief.
The order was limited to refusing permission under the Isaac Wunder order to proceed on the proposed ex parte docket. The judgment did not determine the proposed contempt allegations through a substantive application.