Cardinal brings court challenge over documents

Cardinal Desmond Connell has begun High Court proceedings challenging the production of allegedly legally privileged documents from diocesan files to the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation into the handling by the cardinal and others of complaints of child abuse against Catholic clergy in the Dublin Archdiocese.

The cardinal claims the documents in question are legally privileged and his lawyers yesterday secured an interim High Court injunction, returnable to Monday, restraining the commission from examining the documents to decide whether they attract legal privilege and/ or a duty of confidentiality.

The proceedings arise from an order by the commission last December compelling Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, as the current Archbishop of Dublin, to produce to the commission all documents listed by him in an affidavit of discovery of June 2006.

That affidavit listed documents dating from 1975 to 2004 relating to claims of child abuse against a representative sample of 46 priests in the archdiocese.

Archbishop Martin delivered the documents in disc format on January 15th last and the commission had indicated it intended to begin examining the documents from Monday last to decide whether they are, as Cardinal Connell claims, legally privileged or subject to a duty of confidentiality.

The commission has refused a request from Cardinal Connell's solicitor not to begin that examination process pending the outcome of the cardinal's legal action, Roddy Horan SC, for Cardinal Connell, told the High Court yesterday.

What was being sought by the commission was "omnibus discovery" outside its statutory remit and the matter was urgent as the commission could be examining the documents now, counsel said. His client is elderly and the matter is "of great concern" to him, Mr Horan said.

Counsel secured leave from Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill to bring a judicial review challenge to the commission's handling of the discovery issue. The proceedings have been brought by Cardinal Connell, said to be abroad and not due to return to Ireland until tomorrow, against the members of the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation - Judge Yvonne Murphy (chairwoman), Ita Mangan and Hugh O'Neill.

The commission was established on March 28th, 2006.

In the action, the cardinal claims the commission's actions on the documents are outside its terms of reference and breach his constitutional rights and fair procedures.

He wants court orders quashing the commission's directions and orders requiring production to it of the documents and restraining the commission from examining the documents for the purpose of deciding if the cardinal is correct in his claim that they are legally privileged or confidential.

The commission has disputed whether privilege does in fact attach to certain documents over which privilege has been claimed.

It is believed the documents include legal advice to the diocese following claims of child sexual abuse as well as insurance policies in relation to child abuse claims.