The precise status of a court order imposing a three months sentence on Dublin West TD, Mr Liam Lawlor, led to an early adjournment yesterday of High Court proceedings taken by the Flood tribunal against the TD.
The matter was adjourned so lawyers for both sides could consider the status of the order. The issue is whether the order is "spent" or not.
The status of the order was raised by Mr Justice Smyth during the morning hearing. When the case resumed in the afternoon, Mr Frank Clarke SC, for the tribunal, said he had understood from an affidavit sworn by Mr Lawlor on January 25th that Mr Lawlor believed the sentence remained suspended and that by inference was open to being reimposed. Mr Clarke said that from a brief conversation he had had with Mr John Trainor SC (for Mr Lawlor), Mr Trainor believed that the order might be spent. In those circumstances it was important that the precise status of the order which the court was dealing with be ascertained before the hearing went further.
Mr Clarke said he would argue the order was not spent and it was open to the court to consider whether the suspension remained. If he was wrong, it was important the matter be put on a proper procedural footing.
The only way the matter had now come before the court had been on foot of a review of a further affidavit of discovery of September 7th last by Mr Lawlor, counsel said. He had not dealt with the matter before now because of what he had inferred from Mr Lawlor's affidavit.
Given this was a potential penal matter, it was important that no possible procedural infirmity might undermine what the court might do, Mr Clarke said.
Mr Trainor said there was a court order of January 15th, 2001. The basis of the sentence imposed on Mr Lawlor was a failure to comply with an order made earlier (October 27th, 2000).
The court had found Mr Lawlor in contempt and committed him to prison for three months. That term was to be suspended to November 23rd, 2001, or until further order "in the meantime". The matter had come back before the court in July last year. An order was made that Mr Lawlor had failed to comply with the January 15th, 2001, order and it committed Mr Lawlor to seven days in prison. In July last, on the basis of the January decision, a further seven-day sentence was imposed.
The Flood tribunal did not seek an extension or a postponement of the balance of the suspended sentence beyond November 23rd, 2001, so as to prolong the "Sword of Damocles" over the original sentence, counsel said.
Mr Clarke said that part of the November 23rd order stated the suspension of the sentence was to be conditional on Mr Lawlor's compliance. . . with the orders of the court.