A Dublin man has lost a High Court challenge aimed at quashing his conviction for obstructing the installation of water meters.
Stephen Bennett sought to have the conviction under Section 12.1 of the Water Services Act 2007 overturned on grounds that the provision was unconstitutional and incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ms Justice Miriam O’Regan on Tuesay ruled that he lacked the necessary legal standing to advance those claims.
She noted the judicial review proceedings were taken after Mr Bennett, of Pearse Green, Sallynoggin, was convicted on September 21st, 2017 at Dublin District Court of an offence and fined.
The conviction arose from an incident on November 4th, 2014 when Mr Bennett and others were alleged to have obstructed GMC Sierra employees from installing water meters at a property at Villa Park Road, Dublin 7.
It was alleged that there was obstruction of a truck carrying employees and equipment and obstruction of the water meter. It was claimed, when the workers tried to work on the water meter, Mr Bennett jumped up and down on it.
During the original case, it was argued on behalf of Mr Bennett that Section 12.1 is an “absolute liability” offence, that he wished to put forward his right to protest as a defence but could not do so and the court should therefore find he had no case to answer.
Liability
The DPP argued that the right to protest was not unlimited but the issue as to whether the offence was a strict liability offence did not arise as Mr Bennett had put forward nothing in evidence.
The judge in the district court was satisfied there was evidence of offences before him and would not make a direction to himself in relation to any of the charges.
Following that ruling, he offered Mr Bennett’s lawyers an opportunity to consider and take instructions but that was declined and it was indicated that Mr Bennett would not be going into evidence.
Ms Justice O’Regan said Section 12 provides a person who obstructs or interferes with the exercise of powers under the 2007 Act commits an offence.
Section 8 of the act also provided for fines of up to €15,000 or five years imprisonment or both. It is “clearly unassailable” both under the Irish adversarial system and the ECHR that the nature of defences potentially available in relation to any particular offence would be dealt with on a case by case basis rather than inserted in the legislation creating the offence, she said.
No defence
In this case, she said it was clear Mr Bennett did not have legal standing to challenge the constitutionality of Section 12.1. Mr Bennett had outlined no defence to the charge either in the district court or High Court and it was also clear that a protest in certain circumstances is unlawful and that not including the details of a defence in a statute “is not unusual to be condemned”.
Given Mr Bennett had argued the case should be dismissed on the basis there was no defence available to him rather than because the case was “not made out”, there was no want of fair procedures in how the district court dealt with the matter, she held.
In the absence of any evidence called by Mr Bennett, the judge could not make a finding or ruling beyond what he did make, Ms Justice O’Regan said.
It was “entirely inappropriate” for Mr Bennett to complain to the High Court that no reasons were provided by the district court for its ruling when no reasons were sought from the district court.
