Thirty-six gardaí who last week won their legal challenge to the Oireachtas sub-committee inquiry into the shooting dead of John Carthy at Abbeylara may now seek damages against the sub-committee in further proceedings.
The Supreme Court yesterday remitted the damages issue to the High Court for determination. It also awarded to the gardaí the substantial costs of their High Court and Supreme Court proceedings. The case ran for 19 days in the High Court and 10 days in the Supreme Court, with legal costs estimated at more than €1 million.
The sub-committee had argued that it was entitled to inquire into the events at Abbeylara on April 20th 2000, when John Carthy died after being shot four times by members of the Garda Emergency Response Unit, following a siege at his home.
Last week, the Supreme Court, in a 5/2 majority decision, ruled that the Oireachtas has no explicit, implicit or inherent power to conduct an inquiry where that inquiry is capable of leading to adverse findings of fact against citizens, including a finding of unlawful killing, which would impugn their good names.
It found that the High Court had granted too wide a declaration in declaring that the Oireachtas has no inherent power to conduct, under the aegis of the State, inquiries capable of leading to findings of fact adverse to the good names and livelihoods of citizens.
The Supreme Court instead substituted for the High Court declaration a declaration "that the conducting by the Joint Oireachtas sub-committee of an inquiry into the fatal shooting at Abbeylara on April 20th 2000, leading to adverse findings of fact and conclusions (including a finding of unlawful killing) as to the personal culpability of an individual, not a member of the Oireachtas, so as to impugn their good name, is ultra vires in that the holding of such an inquiry is not within the inherent powers of the Oireachtas".
The court also granted an order quashing directions issued by the ASC to 36 gardaí, requiring them to attend before the ASC, give evidence and produce documents in their possession. It upheld the High Court's findings that the ASC, in its conduct of the inquiry, had breached fair procedures and natural and constitutional justice, particularly in deferring until the last day of the public hearings the right of the Garda applicants to cross-examine witnesses.
