The High Court is expected to deliver its decision next month on a challenge by 36 garda∅ to an Oireachtas sub-committee inquiry into the shooting dead last year of Mr John Carthy in Abbeylara, Co Longford.
The judgment by the three-judge divisional High Court, which is likely to be delivered before the end of November, will have far-reaching implications for the powers of the Oireachtas to hold inquiries into events of major public importance.
To date, there have been only three such inquiries. Just one, the inquiry concerning Deposit Interest Retention Tax by the Dβil Committee on Public Accounts, has concluded. The other two inquiries - into the Abbeylara incident by the subcommittee of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights, and the inquiry by a subcommittee of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport into cost overruns in the mini-CTC rail signalling project - have been challenged in the courts.
A date has yet to be set for the hearing of the challenge to the mini-CTC subcommittee, but the challenge to the Abbeylara sub-committee concluded on Tuesday after being at hearing before the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Morris, Ms Justice Carroll and Mr Justice Kelly, for 19 days.
It opened on July 17th and ran for nine days before the court vacation intervened. It resumed on October 2nd and concluded on October 15th. Mr Carthy was shot dead in controversial circumstances at Abbeylara on April 24th, 2000, by members of the Garda Emergency Response Unit after a siege at his home.
The Garda Commissioner compiled a report on the incident for the Minister for Justice which was referred by the Dβil in October last year to the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights. Last March, the subcommittee was established to examine the report.
In May, 36 garda∅ initiated a judicial review challenge to the subcommittee's inquiry in which they challenged virtually all aspects of the body's work.
They claimed the subcommittee, instead of adhering to an examination of the commissioner's report, has embarked on a wide-ranging inquiry into the shooting itself.
Mr John Rogers SC, for the garda∅, has complained the subcommittee had sought to inquire into whether the last shot fired at Mr Carthy - the fatal shot - should have been fired at all. Mr Rogers and Mr Donal O'Donnell SC have argued there is no power to hold such an inquiry.
Lawyers for the State, together with Fine Gael TD Mr Alan Shatter, who is a member of the subcommittee and made submissions at the hearing, have responded that the Oireachtas has power to establish inquiries into matters of urgent public importance and the courts should be slow to trespass on such power.
