The Supreme Court has cleared the way for Irish Independent publisher Mediahuis to challenge a decision to grant anonymity in a case which the media group says may be in the public interest.
When the case first came before the High Court in May 2023, two plaintiffs obtained an order for their anonymisation, on the grounds that the second plaintiff has a medical condition and their identification would likely cause undue stress to them. Judge Cian Ferriter’s order also prevented the identification of the defendant in the personal injuries case, a named institution.
Mark Tighe, then a reporter at Mediahuis’s Sunday Independent, came across a public listing of the case, and believed a report of the case’s subject matter might be of news and public interest.
Mediahuis brought an application asking the court to revisit the restrictions, to allow access to sufficient evidence on which the restrictions were based, and to provide the publisher an opportunity to make submissions on the restrictions. In one of its reliefs, it sought a direction that the plaintiffs disclose its pleadings in the case.
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Judge David Nolan, in the High Court, refused the application. He held that Mediahuis was seeking a rerunning of the application for reporting restrictions, whereby it could consider whether there was sufficient evidence for the reporting restrictions.
The judge said it was “not up to [Mediahuis] to consider whether there was sufficient evidence for the [reporting restrictions]”.
“No matter how important the role of the media is in society, it does not act as a court,” he said.
Nolan said he had to conclude that there was sufficient evidence before Ferriter when he ordered the restrictions, and that he applied the law in the correct manner.
At the Court of Appeal (CoA), Judge Senan Allen found the High Court erred in failing to recognise that Mediahuis, as a party impacted by the reporting restrictions, was entitled to question whether the order had been properly made.
Allen ordered the remittal of Mediahuis’s motion to the High Court, to allow for the publisher to make submissions on the reporting restrictions. The judge said Mediahuis had a right to be heard “meaningfully”, but did not make any directions on how the remitted hearing should proceed.
In a determination published this week, a three-judge Supreme Court panel refused the plaintiffs permission to appeal Allen’s decision.
For the Supreme Court to hear an appeal, it must first be determined whether the case is in the interests of justice, or raises a matter of public importance.
In their bid for a Supreme Court appeal, the plaintiffs contended that the CoA decision effectively directed that they should provide Mediahuis with “the evidence and the basis upon which” the reporting restrictions were obtained.
They also argued that the CoA decision will allow Mediahuis “to obtain, use and potentially publish information which the High Court relied on in deciding that an ‘in chambers’ order should be made”.
Mediahuis opposed the application for a Supreme Court appeal, arguing it did not raise issues of public importance, nor was it in the interest of justice.
The Supreme Court agreed with the publisher that the appeal did not satisfy the constitutional criteria.
The panel noted that the CoA specifically did not order that the plaintiffs provide Mediahuis with evidence relied upon for the restrictions, and refrained from making any directions on how the remitted application should proceed.
“It is to be presumed that the High Court judge will seek to accommodate as far as practicable the respective rights and interests of all of the parties to the application (including the privacy rights of the second plaintiff),” the panel said.
The panel refused permission for the appeal.
