The Supreme Court is to hear an important appeal about whether parents on civil legal aid may seek their legal costs in special care cases concerning their child.
The outcome of the appeal by Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, has relevance for 11 similar cases and may arise in future cases, the court noted.
If the appeal fails, the agency faces paying higher legal costs to the Legal Aid Board for representing parents in special care cases.
The appeal concerns a High Court costs order made in special care proceedings in which the child’s mother was represented by a solicitor and counsel assigned by the Legal Aid Board.
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The child’s father and court-appointed guardian, both privately represented, were each awarded their costs against the agency at the end of the case.
The agency opposed the mother’s costs application principally on the basis that, because she had legal aid, no order for costs should be made in her favour.
Judge John Jordan ruled she was entitled to recover her costs, including reserved costs and the costs of the High Court hearing itself.
The woman was entitled to expert legal advice and representation in the complex proceedings and the court must decide her costs application in the same way it would treat any applicant for costs who did not have the benefit of legal aid, he said.
The child was entitled to have his mother’s views heard on all issues related to protection of his constitutional rights and she was entitled to exercise her parental right to have the court made aware of her views regarding her son’s welfare, the judge said. Her participation was of assistance to the court and benefited her son.
The issue in the appeal is whether, in special care proceedings under part IV of the 1991 Child Care Act, a parent who has been put on notice, participates in the proceedings and is represented throughout by the Legal Aid Board is precluded from applying for and, in an appropriate case, getting an order for party and party costs.
In a recently published determination, a panel of three Supreme Court judges said the issue is of general public importance and it is in the interests of justice for the court to hear the appeal. A hearing date will be fixed later.
The issue concerns the costs consequences of a form of proceedings which is “not wholly analogous to ordinary adversarial civil litigation”, it said.
This is a matter “on which authoritative guidance is desirable”, the court said.
Issues about the exercise of the costs jurisdiction in non-standard litigation are subject of a separate appeal yet to be heard.
That appeal, by Garda Superintendent Stephen McCauley, is against a High Court decision overturning a district judge’s ruling she had no jurisdiction to award costs to Varinder Singh, an Indian taxi driver, after the superintendent withdrew his opposition to the renewal of his licence.
That opposition to renewal was originally on the basis Singh had been refused permission by the Minister for Justice to remain in the State. After the High Court revoked the Minister’s refusal, Singh got permission to remain and the opposition to renewal of his taxi licence was then dropped.
