The 11-year-old saga of the lottery winner highlights the “systemic problem” in the Irish courts



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The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has upheld a complaint by a former Lotto winner that his right to a fair trial within a reasonable time had been violated by the Irish court system.

In a unanimous decision, the seven-judge court found that the time it took for the Supreme Court to process an appeal filed by former Lottery winner Vincent Keaney of Cobh, Co Cork was a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights Rights.

It was also unanimously found that there was a violation of article 13, which refers to a person’s right to an effective remedy when there has been a violation of their rights.

However, the court decided not to award Mr. Keaney any financial award, due to the Irish Courts’ conclusions that the way in which he had carried out his unsuccessful pleas in the Irish Courts had come close to being an abuse of the process.

“It was not the court’s intention to provide a perverse incentive for applicants to pursue cases abusively at the national level only to try to secure a violation of the European Convention thereafter,” the court said in a statement released with the ruling. .

The Irish judge, Síofra O’Leary, who was one of the seven judges who heard the case, issued a separate but concurring judgment referring to “signs of a systemic problem” in the Irish judicial system in relation to the law to a timely judgment

She said that the fact that the case had been handled by a seven-judge “chamber” rather than a more regular three-judge committee, was the recognition of the importance of the issues raised by the case, specifically in relation to the Irish court system.

Titanic Bar and Restaurant

Keaney, who made £ 1 million in the mid-1990s when he was an unemployed single father, bought a building in Cobh with his earnings where he intended to run the Titanic Bar and Restaurant.

He invested nearly half a million pounds in the plan to convert the old Cunard White Star terminal into Cobh, which was used by the transatlantic route, but ran out of money.

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