Back in November of 2020, Irish tech entrepreneur Declan Ganley launched a High Court action over the government’s lockdown on religious services. Nine months later, no resolution has been reached.
In fact, the courts considered throwing the case out altogether over the issue of “mootness.”
Declan Ganley takes legal challenge to Level 5 ban on attending Mass https://t.co/RlFG6ArK4d
— The Irish Times (@IrishTimes) November 6, 2020
Declan Ganley’s case over Covid-19 restrictions on Mass now moot, judge says https://t.co/yRoE9bPhI0
— The Irish Times (@IrishTimes) May 18, 2021
“The State at the end of last year waived mootness as being something that it would be able to rely upon,” the businessman told Gript.
“Mootness, just to be clear, is once the ban is lifted [the case] would become irrelevant because the ban isn’t in place anymore. But, of course, there are much bigger issues at hand here.
“One is [that] the ban could be re-imposed at any time. Two is the fact that we had the longest ban on public worship in the world of countries that imposed such restrictions. And our constitution very specifically does not allow for that to be done. And so I think it was a clear and serious breach of the constitution, and the case needs to be heard.
“However, the presiding judge has said that, notwithstanding the fact that the State has waived mootness, the court’s resources are precious and valuable, and we need to reserve them for pressing cases. So he wants arguments why this case should still even be heard. So those arguments were made, by both the State and by us, and we’re awaiting the ruling. And that ruling will decide what we do next.”
Asked if these long delays had hurt his confidence at all in the legal system, Ganley replied that it had strengthened his belief in the law, but believed that better resourcing was needed for the courts.
“It certainly hasn’t hurt my confidence in the constitution,” he said.
“In fact it’s strengthened it. The key question here is how do we get to have cases heard in a timely manner. Especially cases that are not of individual interest, but clearly of public interest. For our constitution to be worth the paper it’s written on, we have to be able to seek redress.
“I think that this should underline to everyone, whatever your view on this issue is, that the Irish courts are very seriously under-resourced. Access to redress through the courts needs to be addressed. Because if you can’t get redress for issues in a timely manner then what’s the constitution for? What use is the law?”
Ganley added that similar cases elsewhere in the world had almost always yielded a victory for the aggrieved party.
“I can only hope that we are allowed to let the case be heard, because, where cases like this have been heard in the United States, in Switzerland, in Scotland, in Chile, and many other places in the world, rulings have been made. And by-and-large – in fact, almost exclusively – they’ve ended up setting precedents saying that those bans were not justified.
“And remember, those bans were not even as draconian as the ones that were in place here in Ireland. So we hope and expect that we would end up with a similar result once we get to the hearing.”