The High Court in Belfast has ruled that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) did not have the power to enter private dwellings for alleged breaches of Covid regulations.
The landmark ruling related to a judicial review, taken by seven people, including Klara Kozubikova, who brought the legal challenge against police for entering her home in Downshire Park Central, Belfast in December 2020. Kozubikova said that officers had taken details of all adults present in her home, and issued £200 fixed penalty notices (FPN) against them under the Health Protection (Coronovaris Restrictions) Regulations NI 2020.
Kozubikova, along with six other people, was granted High Court permission to legally challenge the lawfulness of the fixed penalty notice (FPN) actions taken against them.
Ms Kozubikova claimed that police did not have the legal power to enter her home, and argued that the fines were rendered invalid by a failure to give particulars of the circumstances alleged to constitute an offence.
Others involved in the judicial review included Co Derry woman, Michelle Hughes, who was served with a fixed penalty notice when police visited her home in Killowen Drive, Magherafelt, in January 2021. Five others who brought the legal action were fined after they attended a protest in Belfast, following the murder of UK woman Sarah Everard, in March 2021.
Counsel for some of those involved questioned both the legality and proportionality of the action taken by police.
The court heard how Ms Kozubikova had decided to move in with her step-mother and some of her family in their home in Downshire Park Central in Belfast when Covid restrictions were put in place.
On 28 December 2020 she was present in those premises when two PSNI officers entered the house. Legal counsel argued that they did so without anyone’s consent and were uninvited. The court heard that a number of other persons were in the house, including her stepmother, two of her sons, three other persons and two other children.
Ms Kozubikova made the case that the FPN was invalid by reason of a failure to give reasonably detailed particulars of the circumstances alleged to constitute an offenceas required by Regulation 9(5)(a) of the Covid Regulations. Secondly, she said that the PSNI did not have the power to enter her home prior to issuing the FPN.
Counsel for Ms Kozubikova, Mr Ronan Lavery QC with Mr Seamus McIlroy (instructed by Brentnall Legal Ltd), submitted to the court that there was “considerable public confusion and debate” regarding the powers of the PSNI to enter premises under the Covid Regulations.
He noted that the PSNI relied upon Regulation 7(1) as the power which permits officers to enter premises outwith any other statutory or common law power.
Mr Lavery QC argued it was the applicant’s case that the intrusive power to enter a citizen’s premises should not be permitted absent an express provision by the legislator.
Mr Lavery pointed out that this provision was “a vague, sweeping and arbitrary provision which lacks the quality of law necessary to justify interference of citizens’ rights under Article 8 ECHR.”
The court further heard that it was Ms Kozubikova’s case that the PSNI officers entered the premises without a warrant. The court heard that, although disputed, it was asserted that they were not invited into the premises by any residents or visitors in the premises. The PSNI officers could not rely on the provisions of Part II of the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 nor any common law power to justify entering the premises without the consent of the residents, counsel argued.
The applicant also pointed out that the Regulations did provide “specific powers to police officers to direct a gathering to disperse, direct any person in a gathering to return to the place where they are living or remove any person from a gathering – Regulation 7(3).”
Ruling on Wednesday, the court granted a declaration that the regulation 7(1) of Coronavirus legalisation did not give a relevant person the right to enter any premises. It further ruled that the FPN notice issued in respect of Kozubikova – which did not sufficiently particularise the offence for alleged unlawful gatherings under the same legislation – was unlawful and quashed.
They wanted further time to consider Hughes’ case.
Commenting on the ruling, Michael Brentnall from Brentnall Legal stated:
“The judgement of the High Court today goes a significant way in correcting the anomaly that the PSNI perpetuated that it had a power to enter a person’s home without a warrant under the Coronavirus legislation regulations. This was not the case. The court has ruled that the PSNI had no power to enter a private dwelling on that basis.
“Furthermore, the court also declared that a fixed penalty notice issued which did not sufficiently particularise the offence for alleged unlawful gatherings under the same legislation was also unlawful and quashed the notice accordingly.”