A High Court judge has refused to permit the Jehovah's Witness congregation in Ireland to be joined to legal proceedings arising after a female member of the congregation was compelled by court order to have a blood transfusion at a Dublin hospital.
However, Mr Justice Frank Clarke said he was not ruling out the possibility that the congregation - the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Ireland - could be joined to the proceedings at a future stage. It could apply to the trial judge in the case, he said.
The society had sought to be joined either as a co-defendant, notice party or amicus curiae (assistant to the court on legal issues) to the court proceedings brought by the Coombe Women's Hospital against Ms K, a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Attorney General.
Ms K, who is from the Congo, gave birth at the Coombe on September 21st last to a boy but suffered a massive haemorrhage and lost 80 per cent of her blood. She refused to consent to a blood transfusion on religious grounds. Believing she would die without the procedure, the hospital secured an emergency court order to give it.
The hospital is claiming that Ms K's constitutional right to freedom of conscience and the free practice of religion does not extend to enabling her to decline appropriate medical treatment.
It further pleads that it would be contrary to public order and morality if Ms K, by invoking her constitutional rights to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, could place her life in immediate danger by declining routine medical treatment.
The hospital also claims the State has a general duty under the Constitution to protect and safeguard the woman's right to life, her personal rights generally and the family life of the woman and her child.
The State is also obliged, the hospital argues, to safeguard the constitutional rights of the woman's baby, which include the right to be nurtured and reared by his mother.
In a reserved judgment yesterday on the application to be joined to the action, Mr Justice Clarke said two more women of the Jehovah's Witness faith who are due to give birth in the same hospital have a more direct interest in the proceedings.
He said it was hoped that in relation to those women due to give birth, the same fraught circumstances would not arise, but this could not be ruled out. Due to their special circumstances, the two women would have legal standing to apply to join with Ms K if she decided to bring a counterclaim against the hospital.
Earlier the judge said the proceedings raised issues of significant relevance to all members of the congregation but that was not sufficient for it to be joined. There must be a more direct interest, he said.