Supreme Court rules in bin charge case

A Dublin man who refused to pay €241 domestic waste collection charges has lost a Supreme Court challenge to a District Court order requiring him to pay up.

George Williams had contested the charged on the grounds Dublin City Council was obliged to implement charges on a pay by weight basis in accordance with the “polluter pays principle”.

Rejecting his case on grounds the District Court did not have jurisdiction to conisder the legality of the Council’s 2001 decision fixing the charges, the Supreme Court also made clear this and the other issues raised related to the “polluter pays principle” could still be litigated in appropriate proceedings.

Mr Williams, Rutland Grove, Crumlin, Dublin, was prosecuted before the District Court after refusing to pay waste charges in the years 2001 and 2002.

He claimed, in its 2001 decision imposing the charges, the council was required to establish, under the objectives of the Waste Management Plan (WMP) for the Dublin region relating to the polluter pays principle, a “pay by weight” charge within its area. He claimed the charges were made without regard to the 1998 WMP for Dublin which states it “is firmly grounded in the polluter pays principle in terms of costs recovery”.

In 2004, the District Court ordered him to pay charges of €241.26, plus costs and witness expenses. Legal issues arising from the case were referred for determination to the higher courts.

Mr Justice Hugh Geoghegan, with whom Ms Justice Susan Denham and Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman agreed, ruled today the points raised by Mr Williams could not properly be raised in the District Court by way of defence to a claim for a civil debt of a public nature.

The claim for the charges arose under the local government code, not under any special provisions relating to waste management, and the District Court could not carry out an elaborate investigation of the proportionality applied by the council in achieving a polluter pays principle in their waste collection policy, he said.

Since there was no clear legally defined process by which the polluter pays principle is to be implemented, there was no defence to the action to recover the charges for the service once those charges were fixed by the county manager under the general local government code.

On that basis, the District Court did not have jurisdiction to consider Mr Williams’ challenge to the legality of the council’s 2001 resolution fixing the charges, he said.

The judge added he was not suggesting the county manager’s order could never be relevant by way of defence to claims for charges of this kind. It could be if, for example, the claim was for a sum which did not comply with the order. The position could also be quite different in a criminal prosecution.

Given his finding on jurisdiction, the other issues referred for determination by the Supreme Court, including whether the Council had to establish a “pay by weight” charge, did not arise for decision.

Mr Justice Geoghegan said he was not suggesting the matters raised by Mr Williams could not be litigated in another forum. A person with the appropriate legal standing might be entitled to litigate the issue of whether the “polluter pays principle” was not being lawfully implemented by a declaration action just as much by a judicial review, he said.