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The Supreme Court has harshly criticized “quite remarkable and personally insulting comments” made by a High Court judge about the lawyers who had appeared before him.
Judge Richard Humphreys’ comments were contained in a ruling he handed down last year in which he ruled in favor of a deported Ukrainian who wanted to be allowed to return to the state to file an application for international protection that required his presence in the state.
In a ruling issued Tuesday allowing the Superior Court’s decision to be appealed, the Supreme Court said the judge’s comments were “in any way offensive and humiliating and could be detrimental to the career of lawyers and personally disruptive.”
The ruling was in charge of the Chief Justice, Frank Clarke, and Justices John MacMenamin, Elizabeth Dunne, Iseult O’Malley and Marie Baker.
The court said that Judge Humphreys had questioned the professional integrity and ability of the attorneys on both sides in the High Court case and criticized each of them in different ways.
The Superior Court judge had made insulting remarks “about the competence and reliability of the attorneys for the State, and the professional competence of both superior attorneys,” Judge Baker said.
He noted that the attorney in the Superior Court case, whom he did not name, had been named in Judge Humphreys’ ruling. “Needless to say, neither of us had a chance to respond.”
The tone of the Superior Court judgment “may seem somewhat frivolous or, if it weren’t for the gravity of the fact that they were contained in a written judgment of a senior member of the judiciary with considerable immigration experience, it may almost seem humorous or satirical ”.
“The trial judge could even have said them that way. But they must have caused personal and professional discomfort and embarrassment to the people involved ”.
Judge Baker said comments like those made by Judge Humphreys have no place in a trial.
“The judge is in a position of particular power and can damage or destroy a career with a comment made in court or in a written trial,” he said.
“It is not part of the judge’s role to personally insult the lawyers who appear before him.”
Appeal
In the ruling, the court granted an appeal from the Minister of Justice against the Ukrainian.
“While I do not agree with the reasoning of the trial judge in the present case, his judgment was lucid, reasoned, elegant and intelligent,” said Judge Baker.
It would be a shame, he said, if the erudition displayed in his writing was lost in “his more colorful observations, which, in my opinion, are regrettable.”
The question before the court was whether the minister was obliged to revoke a deportation order against a Ukrainian who had been granted consent to submit an application for international protection under the International Protection Act 2015.
However, when he obtained his consent to apply, he had already been deported.
The man came to the state in 2001 and had been given permission to stay. In 2015 he married an Irish citizen. Later that year he was convicted of sexual assault.
His permission to stay in the state was not renewed in 2016, and in 2018 he was issued a deportation order. He now resides in Ukraine.
In the ruling, Judge Baker said that “nowhere was an autonomous right to obtain a visa or other means to legally enter a state found in order to present an application for international protection.”
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