Ruling in Kerins battle with PAC will reverberate around Leinster House for a long time to come
THE Supreme Court ruling in favour of former Rehab Group chief executive Angela Kerins in her battle with the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is a major shot across the bows of Oireachtas authorities.
The seven-judge court has signalled its intention to issue a declaration the PAC acted “unlawfully” in its questioning of the former charity boss.
Its judgment, written by Chief Justice Frank Clarke, also raised the possibility the case may be remitted to the High Court for an assessment of damages. Further submissions will be heard before the court finalises matters.
But yesterday’s ruling will reverberate around Leinster House for some time to come.
It sends out the message that Oireachtas committees can be subject to judicial oversight in situations where there has been “a significant and unremedied unlawful action on the part of a committee”.
At a very minimum, the judgment is likely to rein in committees seeking to investigate matters outside their remit.
But it may also curb more forceful and aggressive lines of questioning and put pressure on Oireachtas authorities to properly sanction members or committees who transgress.
For more than 400 years, it has been recognised courts have no function when it comes to issues of free speech in parliament. In an earlier ruling in the Kerins case, the High Court said this was “fundamental to the separation of powers and is a cornerstone of constitutional democracy”.
The main shield politicians have against judicial criticism comes in the form of Article 15.13 of the Constitution.
This states members of the Oireachtas shall not, in respect of any utterance in either House, be amenable to any court or any authority other than the House itself. As a result, the courts have, for the most part, kept out of Oireachtas business.
But the Kerins case posed the Supreme Court with an intriguing proposition. What if TDs behave unlawfully and little or nothing is done about it?
The details of the Kerins case are well known at this stage. She appeared before the PAC in 2014 to discuss a number of defined issues. These were payments to Rehab from the HSE and Solas and the operation of the Charitable Lotteries Scheme. But, as the High Court later found, questioning strayed away from these topics and much of what was put to her damaged her reputation.
Questions implied she had no concept of accountability and she was accused of double standards. Asked about her pension, an area of which she was not given advance notice, she was told her answers were unreasonable. It was suggested she was overpaid and “on a different planet”.
After the hearing Ms Kerins was in a state of shock, stress and anxiety. She was hospitalised, attempted to take her own life and quit her €240,000-a-year job.
But she did not let matters lie and, with a legal team that included Eames Solicitors and former Attorney General John Rogers SC, she pursued the PAC in the courts.
While the High Court decided it could not find for her due to the protections afforded by Article 15.13, the Supreme Court was satisfied it would, in principle, be open to it to find that the PAC had acted “unlawfully” and outside its terms of reference.
It noted the Oireachtas Committee on Procedure and Privileges (CPP) determined the PAC was acting significantly outside of its remit.
However, as Mr Justice Clarke observed, despite the CPP finding, “it does not seem that any significant action was taken against the PAC”.