Mahon Lawlor ruling due at end of month

THE HIGH Court will rule later this month on an application by the widow of Liam Lawlor to prevent the Mahon tribunal making serious findings of misconduct against either herself or her husband unless proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Hazel Lawlor also wants the court to require the tribunal to fund "effective" legal representation for her before it.

The hearing of her judicial review action concluded after four days yesterday before Mr Justice Roderick Murphy, who said he would give his decision on July 28th.

Ms Lawlor, Somerton House, Lucan, Co Dublin, is a witness in the Quarryvale II module of the tribunal. She was granted limited representation by tribunal chairman Judge Alan Mahon in November 2005. Her involvement is limited to providing evidence about lodgements to her personal accounts between 1991 and 1995.

The court has heard that the estate of Mr Lawlor, who died in a car crash in Moscow in October 2005, potentially faces a legal bill of €600,000 arising out of separate contempt proceedings brought by the tribunal against him for failing to comply with orders of discovery.

In closing submissions for Ms Lawlor, Eoin McGonigal SC said the tribunal was not a civil proceeding and the tribunal was required to set a standard of proof of its own when dealing with matters relating to the Lawlors.

That standard of proof should be flexible according to the circumstances of the tribunal's inquiries, the allegations made and the position of persons affected by those. The fact that Mr Lawlor had died was also a matter for which the tribunal should have regard and he would contend that the tribunal could not make findings against a dead person.

The Supreme Court had stated in decisions relating to other tribunals that a tribunal's findings, while "legally sterile", might still have important and damaging consequences for a person's reputation, he added.