The Minister for Communications Energy and Natural Resources v Wymes

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: MacMenamin J.,O'Malley J.,Baker J.
• Judgment Date: 25 January 2021
• Neutral Citation: [2021] IESCDET 8
• Date: 25 January 2021
• Court: Supreme Court
• Docket Number: Supreme Court record no: S:AP:IE:2020:000125 High Court record no: Bankruptcy 4549

IN THE MATTER OF MICHAEL WYMES A BANKRUPT

BETWEEN

THE MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES AND MICHAEL O'CONNELL

PETITIONERS

AND

MICHAEL WYMES

RESPONDENT

[2021] IESCDET 8

MacMenamin J.

O'Malley J.

Baker J.

Supreme Court record no: S:AP:IE:2020:000125

Court of Appeal record no: A:AP:IE:2019:000247

High Court record no: Bankruptcy 4549

THE SUPREME COURT

DETERMINATION

APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL TO WHICH ARTICLE 34.5.3° OF THE CONSTITUTION APPLIES

RESULT: The Court grants leave to the Respondent / Applicant to appeal to this Court from the Court of Appeal

REASONS GIVEN:

ORDER SOUGHT TO BE APPEALED

COURT: Court of Appeal

DATE OF JUDGMENT OR RULING: 7th July, 2020

DATE OF ORDER: 6th October, 2020

DATE OF PERFECTION OF ORDER: 14th October, 2020

THE APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL WAS MADE ON 3rd November, 2020 AND WAS IN TIME.

General Considerations

1 The general principles applied by this Court in determining whether to grant or refuse leave to appeal having regard to the criteria incorporated into the Constitution as a result of the Thirty-third Amendment have now been considered in a large number of determinations and are fully addressed in both a determination issued by a panel consisting of all of the members of this Court in B. S. v. Director of Public Prosecutions [2017] IESCDET 134 and in a unanimous judgment of a full Court delivered by O'Donnell J. in Quinn Insurance Ltd. v. PricewaterhouseCoopers [2017] IESC 73, [2017] 3 IR 812. It follows that it is unnecessary to revisit the new constitutional architecture for the purposes of this determination.

2 Furthermore, the application for leave filed and the respondent's notice are published along with this determination (subject only to any redaction required by law) and it is therefore unnecessary to set out the position of the parties.

3 Any ruling in a determination concerns whether the facts and legal issues meet the constitutional criteria identified above, is particular to that application, and is final and conclusive only to that extent and as between the parties.

The Application

4 Michael Wymes (“the applicant”) was adjudicated bankrupt by Meenan J. on 23 March 2018 on the petition of the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources (“the respondent”) which had issued many years before on 11 June 2010. Application to dismiss the summons grounding the petition was brought on 15 March 2010 and the appeal of the High Court rejection of that application to the Supreme Court on 28 May 2010 was finally determined on 9 March 2017 and 26 July 2017.

5 The petition issued after the appeal had been lodged to this Court but before it delivered its judgement on the appeal, the respondent had meanwhile been restrained from acting on the petition pending the appeal.

6 Thereafter on 31 May 2018 the applicant filed a Notice to Show Cause against the validity of the adjudication pursuant to s. 16 of the Bankruptcy Act 1988, as amended, inter alia on the grounds that that no act of...