A verdict is expected on Tuesday in an action by a District Court judge alleging he was libelled in a Sunday Independent article. Judge Joseph Mangan claims the front-page article described him as a "mobile phone freak".
Closing speeches in the case finished yesterday and Ms Justice Carroll will address the jury on Tuesday.
Judge Mangan, who lives in Ennis, Co Clare, has sued over an article by journalist Gene Kerrigan, published on March 22nd, 1998. He claims the words meant he had brought the courts into disrepute and was not a fit person to hold judicial office. The defence denies the words bore those or other meanings claimed.
The article was published nine days after Judge Mangan's mobile phone rang while he was sitting at Tallow District Court, Co Waterford. He left the bench temporarily to deal with the call, which he was expecting and which related to an urgent health board application.
In the article there was reference to three District Court judges. It stated: "The 'genitalia' judge (Paul McDonnell) and the two mobile phone freaks (Terry Finn and Joe Mangan) may well have brought the courts into disrepute but it's not entirely their fault." Another passage in the article said: "As for Judge Finn throwing a journalist into a cell because the poor hack's mobile phone rang and Judge Mangan on the same day in a different court leaving his mobile phone switched on so he could take a call in mid-case; it's obvious that a little consistency is called for."
In his closing address for the defence yesterday, Mr Eoin McCullough SC, asked the jury to look at the background to the article, at what had happened in the District Courts in the week or 10 days before publication. In one case a judge had imprisoned a woman because her "genitalia" could be seen. In a second case a judge had imprisoned a man whose mobile phone went off in court. In the third, Judge Mangan had used his mobile phone to answer a call.
That was the unusual collection of facts that were in Mr Kerrigan's mind when he wrote the article. He saw an inconsistency over the use of mobile phones in the District Court.
The events were not precisely the same but there was a common theme. A valid comparison was made in the way mobile phones were used in court.
Mr Garrett Cooney SC, for Judge Mangan, said a very unremarkable series of events had been used to hold Judge Mangan up to scorn and derision before more than half the adult population.
This was done because a journalist had some sort of grudge which he wanted to exercise against another judge who had jailed a journalist.
What Judge Mangan had done was a proper discharge of his functions, with a unique feature that he took a phone call to deal with a matter.