Jailed teacher Enoch Burke’s mother Martina and sister Ammi must be arrested and imprisoned for two weeks over their “disgraceful” contempt of court, a High Court judge has ordered.
Neither woman was in court on Wednesday when Judge Brian Cregan found them guilty of contempt “in the face of the court” over behaviour, including “roaring and shouting” and “intense and venomous” interruptions, that led to a court hearing on February 20th being suspended.
This was a “paradigmatic” case of contempt, he said. It was clear Enoch Burke and other members of his family, including his mother and his sister Ammi, believed they were above the law but they were “definitely” not, he said.
There was no exemption for “Christian evangelicals” or other groups, he said. “We live in a democracy governed by the rule of law and not a theocracy governed by the Burke family.”
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Having been told both women were at their place of employment, the judge directed they should be arrested and committed to prison.
Saying it was “long past time to call a halt to this family circus”, Cregan said he intended to direct that both women and Isaac Burke, a brother of Enoch Burke, should not be permitted to attend any further hearings involving Enoch Burke except via remote link.
If they wished to object to that, they could file submissions within three weeks, he said.
The judge said he would send his judgment and other judgments to the Law Society’s relevant disciplinary committee for consideration on whether it should open a disciplinary investigation into Ammi Burke, a qualified solicitor.
While Ammi Burke was not acting as a solicitor in her brother’s case, her conduct on February 20th was “a deliberate and brazen contempt of court”, he said.
Ammi Burke has been repeatedly removed from the courts by gardaí and he had “never encountered a solicitor who behaved in this way”.
Her behaviour was “disgraceful and indefensible”, particularly given she is a trained solicitor.
Earlier in his judgment, he said that, during the February 20th hearing, he had taken the “only sensible” course of action in striking out a challenge by Enoch Burke to the conduct by a disciplinary appeals panel of his appeal over his dismissal from Wilson’s Hospital School.
The challenge was rendered moot or pointless after two members of the panel resigned and the third could not sit on any new panel, with the effect Burke had achieved what he wanted, a new panel with three different members, he said.
Burke, who was brought from prison for the February 20th hearing, had objected to the strikeout and wanted the challenge to proceed. Interruptions from his mother and sisters were “so loud and vociferous” the judge could not be heard and the proceedings “descended into chaos”.
This had happened during other hearings and the behaviour of the Burkes “is truly exceptional and has to be seen to be believed”, the judge said.
Neither woman had advanced any valid defence to the contempt charge when it returned before him last week, he said.
Martina Burke had “complained bitterly” her son was in prison over 600 days but that should be a “badge of shame” for Enoch Burke because it was 600 days of refusing to obey a court order. If Martina Burke wanted to free her son, she could persuade him to change his “disastrous course of action”.
Ammi Burke, in her submissions, had made “manifestly absurd”, “astonishing and indefensible” arguments the judge’s strikeout order was an “appalling abuse of power” and he was “desperate” to strike out her brother’s case.
There was “simply no reasoning” with Martina Burke or any of her family whom he had encountered in court, Cregan said.
“Theirs is a faith-driven ideology which refuses to accept the rule of law. So be it. The rule of law applies to them whether they accept it or not”.
The “great forbearance” shown by the courts in the face of repeated “gross interference with the administration of justice” cannot continue, he said. On each occasion when he was dealing with the Enoch Burke case, up to 10 gardaí had to be present to ensure order and to remove members of the family. This was “completely abnormal” and unprecedented.
After the judgment was delivered, Enoch Burke, speaking via a remote link from Mountjoy Prison, said his mother and sister were “good people”, people “of integrity” who “are guilty of nothing except speaking the truth”.
The judge’s decision was “nefarious” and “insulted” a higher judge – God – to whom Cregan would have “to account”, Enoch Burke said.
“Do not threaten me,” the judge responded. When the judge said he had not mocked God, Enoch Burke and his brother Isaac both said he had.
Isaac Burke, who was standing in the packed court, said his mother and sister were in their places of employment and the court had wrongly criticised their Christian beliefs.
As Enoch Burke continued to make submissions, his link was muted several times except when he was making arguments concerning his complaint he had been moved from Mountjoy to Castlerea Prison in breach of a court order last January.
Cregan directed the governor of Mountjoy Prison should be made a notice party to that application and said he would deal with it next Tuesday.
Earlier in his judgment, the judge refused an application by Enoch Burke to refer sworn statements by Seán Ó Longáin, the chair of the disciplinary appeals panel, to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for consideration of perjury.
Ó Longáin had strongly denied Burke’s claim he had sworn a false statement that the disciplinary appeals panel, which sat on December 13th last, intended to continue its hearing at a later date. The chair said the day of the hearing concluded “in chaotic scenes” due to behaviour by Burke and some of his family and it was “simply not possible” to explain to Burke the hearing would continue on another day.
The judge said he would not refer the matter to the DPP for reasons including the court could not make findings on this dispute as the proceedings had been struck out as pointless.
Another reason for not referring it was because Enoch Burke “accuses everyone of lying”, including judges, counsel and solicitors, he said. “Every single person who says something with which Mr Burke disagrees is accused of lying.”
