The former Supreme Court judge Mr Hugh O'Flaherty has refused on constitutional grounds to appear before an Oireachtas committee to explain his actions in the Sheedy case.
Mr O'Flaherty's dramatic decision, is announced in a letter to the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality and Women's Rights sent yesterday. It throws into greater disarray political efforts to inquire further into the affair.
The former judge's decision comes as the immediate political crisis over the Sheedy affair subsided last night after intense Dail questioning failed to show that the Taoiseach had behaved improperly in the case.
However, this latest development will add to the political frustration over the apparent inability of politicians to inquire into why the two former judges and former senior court official behaved as they did.
The Oireachtas Committee has been seeking a way to inquire into why Mr O'Flaherty, former High Court judge Mr Cyril Kelly and former Dublin Circuit Court County Registrar Mr Michael Quinlan took various actions in the case.
These actions resulted in the unorthodox re-listing of the case of Philip Sheedy, who had served one year of a four year sentence imposed for drunk driving causing death. The remaining three years of Sheedy's sentence were suspended in October 1998, but he is now back in prison having opted not to contest a challenge to his release by the DPP.
Mr O'Flaherty's refusal to appear before the committee relies on Article 35.2 of the Constitution which provides: "All judges shall be independent in the exercise of their judicial functions and subject only to this Constitution and the law."
He writes: "I am quite clear in my mind that neither a judge nor a former judge is accountable to the Houses of the Oireachtas or any other institution of this State save in circumstances where the provisions of Article 35.4.1 are in the process of being invoked."
He says he was willing to attend before the Committee in the period immediately before he had resigned as a judge, as it seemed likely that a motion to impeach him might come before the Oireachtas. Mr O'Flaherty believes that in the event of an impeachment motion, a judge would be entitled to make his or her case to the Oireachtas. These are the only circumstances in which he can do so, he believes.
However, now that he has resigned, he says his attendance would involve his accounting to the Oireachtas for the performance of his or other people's judicial functions. "I believe it is wrong and unconstitutional for me to render such an account", he says.
"I cannot help further your Joint Committee in relation to these matters. The Constitution does not permit me to do so", he concludes.
Meanwhile, the Taoiseach Mr Ahern told the Dail yesterday that he met Mr O'Flaherty three times in the past year, twice at functions to mark the 1798 bi-centenary and on one other occasion.
With the Tanaiste Ms Harney sitting beside him throughout two and a half hours of detailed questioning, Mr Ahern rejected all suggestions that he had attempted to use improper political influence to get day release from prison for Philip Sheedy.
Opposition parties failed to stand up any of the conspiracy theories that have emerged from the series of bizarre coincidences in the case.
Ending days of confusion, Mr Ahern said that "after an extensive search" he had found the letter Mr Philip Sheedy snr sent to him in July last year on behalf of his son. Up to yesterday, Mr Ahern and his spokesmen had said they believed this letter was lost.
At the weekend Mr Ahern said he was not sure he had got such a letter at all. It could not be ascertained last night how and where this letter was found.
It emerged last night that an initial draft of Mr Ahern's statement of regret was amended in discussions with PD Ministers of State before being issued on Tuesday night. The first version was prepared in the Taoiseach's Merrion Street office and brought to Ms Harney's Kildare Street office by the Minister for Finance Mr McCreevy.
Changes were made during the afternoon in talks between Mr McCreevy and the PD Ministers of State Ms Liz O'Donnell and Mr Bobby Molloy. While the statement did not use the word "apology" and merely expressed the Taoiseach's regret, PD sources say this was not an issue as they were not insisting it be billed as an apology.