THE Supreme Court yesterday discharged an order against three students' unions which had prevented them from distributing or publishing abortion information, following their successful appeal last week.
The unions were granted an order that the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) should pay the costs of the appeal, which was against a High Court permanent order preventing them from providing abortion information.
However, the Supreme Court decided that SPUC was entitled to the costs of the 1992 High Court hearing, which made the restraint order against the three students' unions.
The Chief Justice, Mr Justice Hamilton, said the court had decided there would be no order for the costs of a referral of the case to the European Court.
The court discharged the 1992 High Court injunction granted by Mr Justice Morris against the officers of the Union of Students in Ireland, UCD Students' Union and Trinity College Students' Union.
The order restrained them, their servants or agents, or anyone having knowledge of the order, from printing, publishing or distributing, or assisting in the printing, publishing or distribution of any publication produced under their aegis providing information to persons (including pregnant women) of the identity and location of, and the methods of communication with, a specified clinic or clinics where abortions are performed".
Yesterday, Mr John Rogers SC, for the students' unions, applying for costs, said that Mrs Justice Denham had found that the 1988 decision in the Open Door Counselling case was wrong.
In that case, SPUC had been granted an injunction against the Open Door Counselling clinic and the Well Woman Centre.
Mr Rogers said Mr Justice Barrington had stated in his judgment that it appeared to him the High Court injunction must be "modified"
Mr Justice Hamilton said he fully accepted that was Mr Justice Barrington's finding, but it was not the case made by Mr Rogers during the hearing of the appeal.
Mr Rogers said that was the case he had made that the Open Door Counselling case was wrongly decided and that the order against his clients should be discharged because it was too broad and too disproportionate.
Mr Shane Murphy, counsel for SPUC, said the High Court judge had arrived at his decision in accordance with the law in 1992. The High Court order granting costs to his clients should stand because his clients brought their application against the students' unions on the basis of the law that was valid and in force at that time.
Mr Murphy said student officers, when giving evidence in the High Court, had admitted that they consciously flouted a Supreme Court restraint order before Mr Justice Morris had made the 1992 order. The students' unions had shown a complete disregard for the law.
His clients had always obeyed the law and had come to the Supreme Court to meet the students' appeal. The majority view of the Supreme Court had rested on the view that changes in the law since the making of the 1992 High Court order were the basis for amending that order. It would be unjust if his clients had to pay Supreme Court costs.
Mr Rogers said SPUC had done nothing to enforce a December 1989 Supreme Court order or the 1992 High Court order. SPUC had not taken the trouble to patrol the order it had sought.
Mr Murphy had spoken of evidence of wrongdoing by the students' unions, but his clients had failed to take steps to vindicate the constitutional rights which Mr Murphy claimed his clients had.