The validity of thousands of summonses for summary offences has been put in doubt by a High Court decision last week which which has plunged the District Courts system into chaos. The decision by Mr Justice McCracken on Friday effectively means none of the State's 185 District Court clerks have been properly appointed.
The judge ruled that District Court clerks must be personally appointed by the Minister for Justice. He had been hearing a case taken by a man who challenged the validity of a summons for alleged road traffic offences, issued to him from the Ballina District Court office.
As a result of the decision, all 185 clerks who had originally been appointed by a senior civil servant were hastily reappointed to their posts by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue.
This regularised the position in relation to future cases, but the full extent of the repercussions for prosecutions already before the courts began to emerge yesterday.
At Nenagh District Court in Co Tipperary, Judge John O'Neill adjourned until February a case being taken by the Environmental Protection Agency against the multinational Procter & Gamble over the pollution of the town's water supply last year, pending the outcome of an appeal by the State against the McCracken judgment.
In Dublin, a Health and Safety Authority prosecution against the owner of the Killiney Court Hotel, relating to an incident in which a woman died in a fire last year, was dismissed by Judge John McDonnell because of the High Court ruling.
In another Dublin court, Judge Desmond Windle dismissed about 200 summonses for parking offen ces for the same reason. At Cas tleblayney District Court in Co Monaghan, summonses relating to more than 90 charges were dismissed by Judge Flann Brennan.
Even if the State succeeds with its Supreme Court appeal against Friday's decision, which is likely to be heard in the next two months, many prosecutions which are thrown out by the courts in the meantime will not be capable of being re-entered.
As a general rule, prosecutions for summary offences - including drink-driving, speeding and other road-traffic offences - must be initiated within six months of them happening. That means gar dai must apply to the District Court for a summons to be issued within the required period.
If the State fails to have the McCracken judgment overturned in the Supreme Court, many thousands of such cases will be dropped as the time limit for initiating them will have elapsed.
The more serious indictable offences - which carry specified penalties and the right to be heard by a jury - involve in general no time limit, a legal source said last night, so should remain unaffected.
However, time limits, where they do apply, vary with some types of offence. Health and safety cases must be taken within 12 months of the alleged offence, or within six months of an inquest if one is held, whichever is later.
As an inquest in the hotel case was held on May 8th last, it would appear that the HSA has until Friday of this week to restart a prosecution. The case was within days of having to be dropped.
The full extent of the crisis has yet to be ascertained. The Fine Gael spokesman on justice, Mr Jim Higgins, said last night he had received legal advice which suggested that not only cases curren tly before the courts, but convic tions going back many years, could also be affected.
Earlier in the Dail, he had accused Mr O'Donoghue of failing to recognise the gravity of the situation and called on him to introduce amending legislation to safe guard existing convictions and prevent a "total collapse of the courts system".
However, a Department of Justice spokesman said there were no plans for emergency legislation to deal with the situation. He said it would be a matter for the prosecuting authorities to decide whether to re-initiate cases affected by Friday's decision.
He said the practice of having District Court clerks appointed by a civil servant delegated by the Minister had been in place "so long, we don't know when it began". The issue of the validity of such appointments had been raised in the past, and the Department's legal advice had always been that they were valid, he added.