The Supreme Court has ordered that John Matthews recover his legal costs across the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court following the DPP’s unsuccessful challenge to a District Court costs order.
The substantive appeal had been decided on September 21, 2021. The DPP had sought to quash an order made by District Judge Elizabeth McGrath requiring the prosecution to bear the costs of a case which had not proceeded in the District Court.
The DPP succeeded initially in the High Court. That result was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2019, and the Supreme Court later upheld the outcome, although on different legal grounds.
The issue in this later ruling was who should pay the costs of that litigation.
Matthews argued that, having ultimately succeeded, he should recover all of his costs and also sought interest on them. The DPP argued that he should receive only 50% of his Supreme Court costs and that there should be no costs order for the High Court or Court of Appeal proceedings.
The DPP relied in part on the fact that the Supreme Court resolved the case on a different legal basis from the principal argument which had succeeded for Matthews in the Court of Appeal.
The Supreme Court rejected that approach. It noted that the DPP had failed to obtain the order quashing the District Court decision and that Matthews had secured the finding he sought that the relevant District Court rules were invalid.
Although not every aspect of Matthews’ legal argument was accepted, the court said the dispute was essentially one of legal argument and could not sensibly be broken into separate issues for costs purposes.
It therefore directed that Matthews recover his costs in all three courts.
The court did not, however, award interest. It said the jurisdiction to make such an order was unclear and, in any event, declined to do so.