The High Court has quashed the 2019 Sectoral Employment Order for the electrical contracting sector, which regulated electricians’ pay and other terms, after finding that the Minister acted without jurisdiction and that the order was made in breach of fair procedures.
In a follow-up judgment on 31 July 2020, Mr Justice Garrett Simons set out the orders and costs arising from his principal judgment, delivered on 23 June. The applicant, Náisiúnta Leictreach Contraitheoir Eireann, had challenged the order made under the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015.
The judge made two distinct findings in the principal judgment. He found that the process and content of the specific order did not comply with the requirements of the 2015 Act. Separately, he found that Chapter 3 of that Act, which provided for sectoral employment orders, was invalid under Article 15.2.1° of the Constitution because it left significant policy choices to the executive.
The court’s final order quashes the electrical contracting order with immediate effect on the first, narrower ground. The judge said that this immediate relief was sufficient to vindicate the applicant’s rights.
The broader constitutional declaration is subject to a stay until the intended appeal is determined, or an appellate court makes a further order. The judge also said that, absent an appeal, the declaration would have been suspended for six months. He cited the potential disruption to workers covered by other sectoral orders and the opportunity for the Oireachtas to introduce a different legislative regime. The judgment did not find that sectoral minimum pay rates were inherently unconstitutional or that the rates in the 2019 order were unreasonable.
The State respondents had also sought a stay pending appeal. The court granted a stay on reliefs connected to the constitutional finding, while confirming that no stay had been sought on the order quashing the electrical contracting order. The execution of the costs order is stayed pending the intended appeal.
The applicant was awarded its costs, measured by the six-day High Court hearing in June 2020. The judge refused the State respondents’ request to reduce that award to account for an unsuccessful argument about the statutory “substantially representative” requirement, finding that the argument did not materially lengthen the hearing. Costs are to be measured by the Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicator if the parties cannot agree. The stay on execution also applies to an earlier costs order concerning the applicant’s interlocutory injunction application.