The Minister for Defence has succeeded in his application to quash an order granting leave to an Army commandant to take proceedings aimed at having a letter removed from the soldier's personnel file.
The letter outlined the terms of settlement of Cmdt Adrian Ainsworth's action for damages against the Minister for hearing loss and post-traumatic stress syndrome.
The commandant claimed the letter was inaccurate and was damaging his career prospects in the Army, having contributed to the refusal of six applications for overseas service, which were made after the action was settled.
Cmdt Ainsworth secured £80,000 damages in settlement of his action at the High Court in 1998. He had served overseas four times before the action, including in south Lebanon in 1980.
As a result of his involvement in those tours of duty, and other critical incidents, he claimed he developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome and noise-induced hearing loss.
Mr Justice Kearns said media reports of Cmdt Ainsworth's case had stated the settlement was paid for hearing loss and not post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Cmdt Ainsworth disputed those reports and procured an affidavit from his senior counsel stating the settlement was largely in compensation for stress with only a small proportion of it for hearing loss. A different account of the settlement was given in a report on his file from the Minister's senior counsel.
Cmdt Ainsworth had been paid his damages and continued with the Army. He was deemed fit for restricted overseas service in October 2000 but then applied unsuccessfully six times for such service.
The director of the Army Medical Corps told him he had not made the necessary recommendations supporting the requests.
The claims branch of the Defence Forces, supported by a letter from senior counsel for the State which was on Cmdt Ainsworth's file, took the view that any overseas tours of duty would amount to double compensation as he had already been compensated for hearing loss and future loss of earnings.
Cmdt Ainsworth later learned that the Army senior counsel's report on his case had stated the hearing loss element of his claim was valued at about £70,000 while the remaining £10,000 was for future loss of earnings.
Cmdt Ainsworth claimed that report did not accurately represent the agreement which had settled his case. He specifically claimed there was no agreement the £80,000 should be attributed to noise-induced hearing loss.
The letter was damaging his career and he had secured leave to seek orders to have the letter removed from the file and to have the Army restrained from relying on it. The Minister then sought to discharge the leave, arguing it should never have been granted.
Granting the Minister's application to quash the leave, Mr Justice Kearns said the real dispute was that Cmdt Ainsworth and the Minister had different versions of the settlement of his action for damages and there could be no adjudication of Cmdt Ainsworth's complaint without deciding what those terms of settlement were.
Judicial review was concerned with the propriety of decision-making processes and not "mere secretarial acts" such as placing a letter on a file, the judge said. This case was plainly one where leave to take judicial review proceedings should not have been granted.