Lay Litigant wins another Case in Supreme Court

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Saturday February 11, 2017 00:11 by Justin Morahan

Backdating of court order a factor in win

The rejection of a judicial review request could not be appealed because of the backdating of the High Court Order. Now the appeal is allowed.

On Friday 10 February 2016 lay litigant Kevin Tracey won a case in the Supreme Court in Dublin that allows him extra time to appeal a judicial review that he had been denied in 2008. The success in the Supreme Court means that he can now appeal the judgement and order made in the High Court by Judge McGovern.

On being denied leave in the High Court, Mr Tracey kept an assiduous eye on the Courts Service records to avail of a 21-day window of opportunity after the Order of the judge had been perfected. It is a rule of court that a litigant must institute an appeal within 21 days after the perfection date of the order. In this case, the order remained non-perfected over several months and after each inspection of the records, he filed an affidavit noting the non-perfection. Then suddenly, the order was perfected but backdated by nine months. The Courts Service said that this was an error. The 21-day opportunity for appealing the order was well past.

Efforts made to remedy the situation by requesting the DPP to agree to an extension of time failed as the DPP refused the request.

In the Supreme Court the Counsel for the State argued that Mr Tracey should have then brought an appeal to the Supreme Court; the Court however ruled that because of the exceptional circumstances of the case, including his serious illness (beginning in July 2010), it would be unfair to deny him the extra time - which it then granted.

The full judgement is at: http://www.courts.ie/Judgments.nsf/bce24a8184816f158025...ument