THE Minister for Defence, Mr Barrett, will be represented in High Court proceedings being taken by a garda against the Garda Commissioner arising out of an incident at a drinks reception in Cyprus, it was ruled yesterday.
Mr Barrett made the application stating that allegations against him had caused him and his family "deep hurt" and had called into question his fitness for public office.
It was a dangerous precedent to join someone in proceedings for the purpose of clearing their good name, but in view of the overall public element that Mr Barrett was a member of Government and the events grounding the garda's case heavily involved him, Mr Justice Geoghegan said he would allow the Minister to be made a notice party.
Last Good Friday Garda Michael Fitzpatrick was granted a High Court order preventing the Garda Commissioner, Mr Patrick Culligan, repatriating him from Cyprus to his station in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan. The garda is not due to finish his term in Cyprus until February 1997.
Mr Colm Allen SC, for the Minister, making his application to be joined in the proceedings, said the incident occurred when Mr Barrett was on an official visit to the troops in Cyprus. During the course of the Good Friday application, various wild and scandalous allegations were made against the Minister of the gravest nature.
He said the Minister, who was making the application in a personal capacity, had no intention of interfering in the dispute between the garda and Commissioner.
Mr Pat O'Connell, counsel for Garda Fitzpatrick, said he had no objection to the Minister being joined, providing no application for costs was made against them. He said he took grave exception to some of the things said about the affidavit of Mr Thomas Murphy, Garda Fitzpatrick's solicitor. They had made no allegations about the Minister's fitness for office.
Mr Michael Cush, counsel for the Commissioner, said he had no objection to the Minister being joined.
The judge said there had never been a case as far as he knew for someone to be joined because they were claiming they had been defamed that the applicant was able to come in, not for the purpose of helping the court in the judicial review matter, but for the purpose of clearing his name.
He would limit the extent to which Mr Barrett would be permitted to be a notice party in that he would leave that to the judge hearing the judicial review application.
Mr Justice Geoghegan said Garda Fitzpatrick was looking to have quashed a decision of the Commissioner on March 17th 1996, to repatriate him from the UN base in Cyprus back to Carrickmacross. It was being alleged this was being done by way of punishment for an incident which occurred in Cyprus in the presence of the Minister.
Mr Barrett was concerned about his good name and also his public reputation as a Government member, and said that gave him an interest in the proceedings.
The judge said it was doubtful that it did give him an interest in the legal sense. The court determining the judicial review would not be determining those matters. It would be determining the case between Garda Fitzpatrick and the Commissioner.
It was fairly unprecedented to allow the intervention in a judicial review application for the purpose of protecting one's good name. In view of the overall public element that Mr Barrett was a member of the Government, that events grounding the application heavily involved him, and that there was no opposition to him being involved, the judge said, he was prepared to allow him be made a notice party.
He said he would not give a direction as to how Mr Barrett should participate, for example, if he would give evidence. He would leave that to the trial judge.
Another motion being taken by the Commissioner to have the Good Friday injunction lilted was adjourned for two weeks.