The High Court refused a woman’s application for leave to seek judicial review of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse’s refusal to release her late husband’s evidence to its Confidential Committee. It also refused her request to extend the time for bringing the challenge.
The judgment, delivered by O’Neill J. on 7 November 2007, concerned a decision communicated on 21 February 2006. The woman sought the record for herself or the Residential Institutions Redress Board, arguing it was essential to her compensation application. The judgment says the record could support that claim, although it would not be admissible as evidence in court proceedings.
The woman said her late husband had given evidence to the Confidential Committee about abuse he said he suffered in an Irish residential institution between 1945 and 1951. He died in July 2005. According to her account, he believed his contact with the Commission would lead to compensation and did not know he had to make a separate application to the Redress Board. Those were her averments, as recounted in the judgment.
The Commission refused to provide the record, citing section 27 of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Act 2000. That provision bars disclosure of information given to the Confidential Committee, subject to specified exceptions. The Commission said it was legally precluded from disclosing the material.
The judge held that the statutory confidentiality obligation was absolute apart from the exceptions set out in section 27(2), none of which applied. He also found that court-ordered disclosure under section 27(3) was unnecessary for the judicial review. The court could not use a separate procedure for seeking directions to authorise conduct that would otherwise be a criminal offence, he said.
The woman argued that withholding the record breached her rights to access to justice under the Constitution and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The judge rejected that argument: she retained the right to apply for compensation, but difficulty proving a claim did not itself deny access to justice. He concluded that the Commission’s refusal was lawful and within its jurisdiction.
The court found no substantial grounds to challenge the refusal and no good and sufficient reason to extend the filing period. It refused both forms of relief sought. The ruling did not determine the compensation application; the judgment described that application as dependent on obtaining proof the Commission could not lawfully disclose.