A senior counsel representing two Dublin men who deny being members of an illegal organisation refused to allow himself to be searched by gardaí as he was about to enter a courtroom yesterday.
A stand-off involving Mr Tony Sammon SC and his instructing solicitor, Mr Michael Finucane, lasted outside High Court No 15 for two hours before Mr Justice Abbott adjourned matters until 11 a.m. today.
Mr Martin Kelly (43), of Westpark, Artane, and Mr William Clare (35), of Adare Park, Coolock, were in court seeking to challenge their detention on suspicion of being members of an illegal organisation.
They had been arrested on Monday under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, released on Wednesday night and immediately rearrested under Section 4 of the Criminal Law Act 1997 and charged with membership of an illegal organisation in the Special Criminal Court.
Both men denied from the dock that they were, or ever had been, members of an illegal organisation.
Following their remand in custody to Portlaoise Prison, Mr Justice McKechnie made an order of habeus corpus directing that they be brought to the High Court yesterday to challenge the legality of their detention.
When their constitutional challenge was called yesterday, Mr Micheal P. O'Higgins, counsel for the State, said that Mr Sammon was not in court.
He said Mr Sammon had asked him to inform the court that he was not being permitted to enter until such time as he submitted himself to a search.
As a result, the two men were not legally represented in court.
Mr O'Higgins said he would prefer if Mr Sammon indicated his concerns to the court himself. Mr Sammon had told him that he had legitimate concerns regarding the searching of persons outside the door of the court by members of the Garda Síochána. Certain people, Mr Sammon had claimed, were being allowed in without being searched.
Mr Justice Abbott said he was aware that the former President of the High Court, Mr Justice Morris, and the Bar Council had concluded a negotiation and reached an understanding in relation to the necessity to have solicitors and counsel searched in certain circumstances on their way into court.
As a result of these negotiations, a direction had been in place from the time of Mr Justice Morris that the gardaí in charge of security could insist on solicitors and counsel and everyone else being searched appropriately, and they could take whatever other reasonable steps they required to deal with security.
Mr Justice Abbott said that Mr Kelly and Mr Clare could seek another legal team to represent them or, in the case of personally presenting their application, they would be given every consideration by the court.
The judge rose from the bench and said that he would wait in his chambers while negotiations continued between the men's legal team and Garda officers. Later, when told by Mr O'Higgins that matters had not progressed, he adjourned the proceedings until today.
When Mr Kelly and Mr Clare were taken to a holding cell in the Four Courts building, Mr Finucane was refused admission to the cell to see them without being searched. Mr Finucane told gardaí that the cell was an extension of the prison service and said he would submit to a search by prison officers. Mr Finucane was then taken aside and searched by gardaí and members of the press were ushered from the area.
The search at the courtroom door was conducted by a male and a female garda and, in the presence of other uniformed gardaí and plainclothes detectives, was somewhat farcical.
Coat jackets were touched by a garda and ladies' handbags and briefcases were examined. Having entered and exited the courtroom on about a dozen occasions, the jacket pockets of this reporter [Ray Managh] were merely touched and there was no trouser or leg search.