Bid to block PSNI man Harris taking top Garda job fails
A LEGAL challenge intended to prevent the appointment of PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris as the next Garda Commissioner has been thrown out by the High Court.
Judge Denis McDonald refused to allow Belfast historian Ciarán MacAirt to continue his case.
Mr MacAirt had claimed that Mr Harris would be conflicted on matters of crime and security if he were to become Garda Commissioner, due to his previous commitments to the PSNI and its predecessor the RUC. Mr Harris is due to take up his new post on September 3.
Mr MacAirt, whose grandmother Kathleen Irvine was killed in a bomb blast in a bar in Belfast in 1971, said he would now consult with family members and decide whether to appeal.
Judge McDonald said there was no question of Mr MacAirt’s genuine intentions in his case against the Minister for Justice and the State. But he said that in his application for a judicial review, Mr MacAirt did not address the statutory process under which Mr Harris was appointed.
He said there was an ‘elaborate and careful’ recruitment process, involving the Policing Authority and the Public Appointment Service, and that the Government could only reject a selected candidate in exceptional circumstances.
Mr MacAirt was not entitled to proceed with his case as if those laws did not exist, the judge said.
He also considered Mr MacAirt’s claim that Mr Harris was bound by the British Official Secrets Act, and the impact this would have on any Garda investigation he might lead into the killing of Irish citizens in the North. Judge McDonald said any foreign appointee to the job would carry obligations of prior confidentiality with them, and he could not see how this made Mr Harris ineligible.
He also said there was no evidence that any investigation by gardaí into deaths of Irish citizens in Northern Ireland was imminent.
And he said Mr MacAirt had not shown that there was a constitutional obligation on the Garda to investigate deaths which occurred north of the border.
A member of the UVF later admitted his role in Ms Irvine’s death but Mr MacAirt said there was never a proper investigation, and claimed there was an RUC cover-up.
He claimed his efforts to find the truth had been frustrated by the PSNI, and had been consistently obstructed by Mr Harris.
Judge McDonald said he wanted to make it clear Mr Harris was not on notice of the legal action. He made an order that Mr MacAirt pay all the legal costs.