The High Court has declined to rule on a former Mountjoy Prison inmate’s challenge to screened visits for protected prisoners, finding that the proceedings had become moot after the policy changed and the applicant was released.
Mr Justice Gerard Hogan delivered the judgment on 31 May 2018 in judicial review proceedings brought by Zachary Purcell against the Governor of Mountjoy Prison, the Irish Prison Service and the Minister for Justice and Equality.
Purcell challenged the practice of requiring protected prisoners to meet family members and other visitors across a screen, preventing physical contact. He sought an order quashing the Governor’s decision to permit only screened visits for him as a protected prisoner. The court did not decide whether the practice was lawful or whether it unjustifiably interfered with family rights.
The judgment records that Purcell was convicted of burglary in December 2015, sentenced to three years in prison and granted protected-prisoner status after requesting it. He was released in February 2018. His judicial review proceedings had begun in January 2017.
The Governor’s affidavit cited safety concerns in the shared visiting area, where protected prisoners from different groups and their visitors could be present, as well as the risk that visits could be used to bring contraband into the prison. The judgment also records the Governor’s view that Purcell had been involved in pressuring weaker members of his group to bring contraband inside. That was the Governor’s stated view, not a finding made by Mr Justice Hogan.
The court said the earlier, generally applied screened-visits practice had been discontinued after protected prisoners moved from Mountjoy West to A Wing in June 2017. Unscreened visits had been reintroduced in A Wing, including for Purcell, while screening remained for a more limited group of particularly vulnerable prisoners housed in B Basement. The Governor said the policy would be kept under review and could be reintroduced more broadly if the safety or contraband concerns returned.
Mr Justice Hogan concluded that the circumstances underlying Purcell’s challenge had largely disappeared. Any challenge to the remaining policy would depend on the circumstances of a prisoner actually subject to it; Purcell was not in that group. The court declined to consider such a claim on his behalf or to rule on the historical policy based on circumstances that no longer applied.
The judgment therefore disposed of the proceedings on mootness grounds. It made no ruling on the substantive validity of the screened-visits practice.