The High Court refused an application by Martin Greene, a minor detained at Oberstown Children’s Detention Centre, for discovery of reports and other documents about the adequacy of responses to disturbances by detainees.
Mr Justice Noonan delivered judgment on 22 February 2019 in judicial review proceedings. Greene, suing through his mother and next friend Julie Greene, sought documents including the Goldson/Hardwick Operational Review of Oberstown Children’s Detention Campus. The request covered internal and external reviews, reports, papers and memoranda concerning the response of the second named respondent, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs.
The wider judicial review concerns three periods in 2018 when Greene was segregated from other children at Oberstown. He alleges the segregation amounted to an ad hoc punishment regime imposed without fair procedures, including an opportunity to make representations and reasons for the decision. The respondents deny that it was punishment, saying segregation was required for his safety and the safety of others. They say he knew the reasons and deny that his rights were infringed. Those underlying claims were not decided in this discovery application.
The respondents’ evidence was that the Goldson/Hardwick Review followed visits to the campus by two English academics in November 2016 and was presented to management in February 2017. Pat Bergin, the first named respondent, said without contradiction that the policies examined in the review were not those in force during the 2018 periods at issue; a new segregation policy had been operating since early 2017.
Greene’s solicitor said the documents were needed to establish that the respondents knew the alleged punishment regime lacked procedural fairness and did not accord with best practice. The judgment records that no further specific explanation was given of what material the documents might contain or how it would support the case.
The court said discovery in judicial review is generally exceptional and is normally necessary only where a substantive factual dispute cannot fairly be resolved without the documents. It held that Greene had established neither relevance nor necessity: the review concerned different policies, and both sides agreed there were no factual disputes in the proceedings. The court said the same reasoning applied to the other documents in the requested category.
The judgment noted that a claim of confidentiality is not, by itself, an answer to a discovery request, but may be considered when assessing necessity and proportionality. It did not decide the confidentiality issue. The court refused the discovery application; the judgment does not determine the underlying judicial review claims.