Carroll v Judge Mary Fahy

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Mr Justice Cian Ferriter
• Judgment Date: 11 July 2022
• Neutral Citation: [2022] IEHC 421
• Court: High Court
• Docket Number: RECORD NO. 2014/788JR

Between

Reginald Carroll

Applicant

and

District Judge Mary Fahy and Director of Public Prosecutions

Respondents

[2022] IEHC 421

RECORD NO. 2014/788JR

THE HIGH COURT

JUDICIAL REVIEW

Judicial review – Criminal proceedings – Discovery – Applicant seeking certiorari of the decision of the District Judge fixing a hearing date for the trial in the District Court without giving the applicant an election to trial by jury – Whether discovery was required for the applicant to fairly and fully advance his case

Facts: The applicant, Mr Carroll, applied to the High Court seeking relief in respect of criminal proceedings against him which were stayed before the District Court in Derrynae, Co Galway. The criminal proceedings concerned alleged offences under s. 53 of the Road Traffic Act 1961 as amended and under s. 13 of the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act 1997 as amended. The applicant admitted that his principal objective at the hearing was to get an order of prohibition/dismissal from the Court of the criminal charges pending before the District Court on account of what he contended were matters of serious wrongdoing on the part of the prosecuting Gardaí and others who had been involved in the criminal proceedings. As part of that objective, the applicant brought two applications by motion within the proceedings. The first such motion was a motion for discovery pursuant to order 31 RSC, issued on 4th November 2021, in which the applicant sought discovery of an extensive range of material including forensic IT analysis of electronically generated statements of the prosecuting Gardaí/Garda witnesses; DAR recordings of the proceedings before the District Court and details of forensic evidence results recovered from the applicant’s house on 24th November 2018 and 25th of August 2019. In the second motion, the applicant sought the transcript/the digital audio recording (DAR) of the hearing before the High Court in the judicial review proceedings on 10th February 2015 and also sought “a copy of any correspondence sent by the registrar of the High Court to the District Court headquarters/Galway Court Service regarding the case as directed by the President of the High Court”. This application was grounded on a contention that the President on that date confirmed that prohibition/dismissal was part of the leave granted on 6th January 2015. “The correspondence necessary to show the instruction by the President in relation to that direction” was also sought. What fell to be decided by the Court at the substantive hearing of the judicial review application was confined to the net issue of whether or not the District Judge erred in law on 13th November 2014 in setting down the criminal proceedings for hearing in the District Court without providing the applicant with a right to elect for trial by jury in respect of the two sets of offences.

Held by the Court that no discovery or DAR was required for the applicant to fairly and fully advance his case on the single ground on which he had been granted leave to advance i.e. that he was wrongly denied a right to trial by jury. The Court held that the applicant’s contention was misconceived as neither the offence of dangerous driving contrary to s. 53 of the 1961 Act nor the offence of endangerment contrary to s. 13 of the 1997 Act provides for a right of election.

The Court refused the relief sought in respect of the discovery application and the DAR application. The Court also refused the relief sought in respect of the substantive judicial review application for certiorari of the decision of the District Judge of 13th November 2014 fixing a hearing date for the trial in the District Court without giving the applicant an election to trial by jury.

Relief refused.

JUDGMENT of Mr Justice Cian Ferriter delivered this 11th day of July 2022

Introduction

1 These are judicial review proceedings in which the applicant seeks relief in respect of criminal proceedings against him which are currently stayed before the District Court in Derrynae, Co Galway. I will come to the scope of the relief sought presently.

2 The criminal proceedings before the District Court concern alleged offences under s.53 Road Traffic Act 1961 as amended and under s.13 of the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act 1997 as amended. These offences are known as “dangerous driving” and “endangerment”, respectively. The applicant was charged with these offences arising out of alleged dangerous driving and an alleged ramming incident involving his car and a Garda patrol car on 23 ^rd April 2013 near Kilkieran, Cashel, County Galway.

3 The District Court proceedings have stood stayed since the grant of leave to apply for judicial review to the applicant by order of the High Court of 6 ^th January 2015.

Applications before the Court

4 The hearing of the judicial review and the two related applications for discovery and for access to the DAR records of certain hearings before the High Court within the judicial review proceedings proceeded before me remotely (after some technical difficulties) on the afternoon of Thursday 23 ^rd June and the morning of Friday 24 ^th June 2022 last. The applicant represented himself in person and the DPP was represented by Niall Nolan BL. The hearing had been fixed to proceed remotely at the applicant's request.

5 I should note that for completeness that when the matter came on for hearing on Thursday, 23 ^rd June 2022, the applicant made an application to Mr. Justice Meenan that the hearing be adjourned in circumstances where he said he was suffering from post- Covid fatigue. Mr. Justice Meenan was not satisfied with the adequacy of the medical evidence advanced by the applicant in support of his adjournment application. I should say that once certain technical difficulties which the applicant had in properly logging in to the remote hearing were overcome, the applicant proved more than capable of presenting his oral arguments and submissions in a concise but comprehensive fashion.

6 During the course of the hearing before me, the applicant made reference to what I understood to be proceedings instituted by him before the European Court of Human Rights. I gave him liberty to supply the Court with a copy of the application form in respect of those proceedings. I also gave him liberty to submit references to parts of the transcript of one of the hearings in the proceedings (being a hearing before Ms. Justice Baker, then in the High Court) which related to comments made by Ms. Justice Baker about discovery in the proceedings. The applicant sent in material in respect of those matters by email shortly after the hearing. In addition to that material, the applicant sent in a request for orders for DARs of the mention of these proceedings before the Court on 10 ^th June 2021 and enclosed a motion paper in respect of this matter. As this application was not before me at the hearing, I am not making any ruling on it in this judgment. The applicant also sought a DAR of the hearing before me on 23 ^rd and 24 ^th June 2022. I do not think it is appropriate to deal with this latter application until after the parties have had an opportunity to consider this judgment.

Objective of proceedings

7 The applicant frankly admitted in his oral submissions, as was confirmed by his detailed written submissions of 22 ^nd June 2022, that his principal objective at the hearing was to get an order of prohibition/dismissal from this Court of the criminal charges pending before the District Court on account of what he contends are matters of serious wrongdoing on the part of the prosecuting Gardaí and others who have been involved in the criminal proceedings. Whether he can legitimately seek such orders in these proceedings is a matter I will turn to presently.

8 As part of that objective, the applicant brought two applications by motion within these proceedings. The first such motion was a motion for discovery pursuant to order 31 RSC, issued on 4 ^th November 2021, in which the applicant sought discovery of an extensive range of material including forensic IT analysis of electronically generated statements of the prosecuting Gardaí/Garda witnesses; DAR recordings of the proceedings before the District Court and details of forensic evidence results recovered from the applicant's house on 24 ^th November 2018 and 25 ^th of August 2019. This application was grounded on an affidavit of the applicant of 4 ^th November 2021. For ease, I will refer to this as “the discovery application”.

9 The second motion was brought by notice of motion also filed 4 ^th November 2021 also grounded on an affidavit of the applicant of 4 ^th November 2021. In this application, the applicant seeks the transcript/the digital audio recording (DAR) of the hearing before the High Court in these judicial review proceedings on 10 ^th February 2015 and also seeks “a copy of any correspondence sent by the registrar of the High Court to the District Court headquarters/Galway Court Service regarding the case as directed by the President of the High Court”. This application was grounded on a contention that the President on that date confirmed that prohibition/dismissal was part of the leave granted on 6 ^th January 2015. “The correspondence necessary to show the instruction by the President in relation to that direction” was also sought. For ease, I will refer to this as “the DAR application”.

Material considered for this judgment

10 This judgment sets out my decision on the discovery application, the DAR application and on the substantive judicial review which I have arrived at following careful consideration of all of the papers in this matter. The papers that I have considered include:

• — the original statement of grounds dated 19 ^th December 2014;

• — the transcript of the hearing of the leave application before Mr. Justice Barton on 6 ^th January 2015 and the leave order of that...