The High Court refused Patrick McGreal’s application to file a proposed motion without paying stamp duty, ruling that the fee exemption he relied on did not cover his judicial review proceedings. The court made no order as to costs and directed that its order be perfected without further listing.
Mr McGreal sought the exemption on the basis that his proposed motion raised issues about liberty under Article 40.4 of the Constitution. The motion was intended to challenge a 6 December 2024 order that set aside his leave to seek judicial review against the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage.
The proposed motion alleged, among other things, that the Minister lacked authority to bring the earlier application and that the resulting order breached constitutional rights. Those were the applicant’s stated grounds; the present judgment concerned only whether he could file the motion without paying the fee.
Humphreys J said the relevant fees order exempted proceedings under Article 40.4, which he interpreted as applications under that provision’s procedures for a person’s release from unlawful detention. The judicial review did not seek the applicant’s release from detention, and the court said that referring to Article 40.4 in the title of proceedings could not change their substance.
The judge also considered two earlier ex parte orders permitting papers to be filed without fees because the intended proceedings appeared to raise an Article 40.4 issue. He said that wording did not match the test in the fees order. The order separately addressed judicial-review applications in criminal proceedings, but that exception did not apply here, he said. The court also held that it had no power under the fees order to waive a fee that the order required.
The judgment records that the underlying judicial review challenged regulations concerning exempted development and accommodation for displaced people and people seeking international protection. It notes that the challenge was general and did not concern a specific development. The court did not decide the merits of the proposed motion to set aside the 6 December order, saying it was unnecessary to address whether that motion would succeed.