Brian Curtin Affair: There is no end in sight to the mess surrounding the Government's efforts to impeach Circuit Court judge Brian Curtin.
The problem has its origins in Operation Amethyst, which involved hundreds of Garda raids on the homes of people whose identities and credit card details had been passed on to the Garda by the FBI. The names had been uncovered during an investigation of a child pornography website in Texas.
Judge Curtin's name appeared on the list, and his computer was seized during a raid on his Tralee home. He was charged with possession of child pornography, which carries a five-year prison sentence on conviction, and appeared in Tralee Circuit Court last April.
It emerged that the warrant under which his computer was seized was a day out of date, and therefore the evidence on it was not admissible in his trial. He was acquitted by direction of the trial judge, and left the court an innocent man in the eyes of the law. However, his reputation had been irrevocably tainted, and it was clear to everyone he could never sit on the bench again with any credibility.
The only procedure for getting rid of a judge is impeachment by both houses of the Oireachtas, citing stated misbehaviour. The Oireachtas set up a committee to inquire into the conduct that led to him being charged with the serious criminal offence. His lawyers told the committee he was medically unfit to appear before it. In December the High Court granted leave to Judge Curtin's lawyers to challenge the work of the Oireachtas committee. This challenge will be heard early next year.
Last month the committee ordered him to produce his computer. It has been held by the Garda since it was seized, but the courts have found it was seized illegally. If the committee obtains it directly from the gardaí, it will remain tainted by that illegality, and there will be a question mark over the use of any evidence on it. As of now, it is unclear what steps, if any, Judge Curtin has taken to get his computer back from the Garda in order to give it to the committee, nor is it known what safeguards may be necessary to secure any evidence that may be on it. It may not be in his interests to return it to his possession at all.
The question of his mental capacity to deal with all of this remains in doubt, despite the ruling of the committee, and the case may yet end up in the courts. So may the vexed question of the committee's access to the computer.
Carol Coulter