The Attorney General had offered "wise and well-considered" legal and practical advice to members of the Oireachtas regarding parliamentary inquiries, including the legal necessity for a genuine impartiality in the conduct of such inquiries. But the Abbeylara subcommittee (ASC) unfortunately chose to ignore a great deal of this advice, Ms Justice McGuinness said.
Both the present remit of the ASC and the course of action taken by it went well beyond any constitutionally related and proportionate inherent power of an Oireachtas committee.
Leaving aside the legal merits of making a finding of unlawful killing, in what way would a finding of individual culpability as to whose shot killed Mr Carthy assist the making of future policy?
The Oireachtas had an important but limited power to inquire, which power was inherent in the Constitution. It did not extend to the making of "findings of fact" concerning the individual culpability of non-Oireachtas members which involved damage to the good names of individuals.
The High Court's analysis of the events leading to the establishment of what the ASC described as the "Abbeylara inquiry" revealed a litany of procedural changes of direction and procedural errors and constantly changing terms of reference.
It was unacceptable for members of such a committee to make public comments on the subject matter of the inquiry in the run up to the inquiry and during it. However, politicians, as elected representatives, were not automatically incapable of carrying out such an inquiry.