FOR a third time, a jury was sworn in at the High Court yesterday for the hearing of the libel action by Democratic Left leader and former Minister for Social Welfare, Mr Prionsias De Rossa, against the Sunday Independent.
However, Mr Justice Carney told the jurors an application had been made on Wednesday as a result of which certain procedural matters were being dealt with in Moscow by him before the trial could start.
Mr Justice Carney said this was the third trial of the action. It was possibly one of the most hard fought cases in the history of Irish jurisprudence.
He said it seemed likely the trial would not start for about a week.
He proposed swearing the jury for the case, taking their phone numbers and sending for them when required.
Mr Justice Carney said he also proposed to select five or so jurors to be available to take the place of any member of the jury should they become unavailable in the next week or so.
An all-female jury was selected for the hearing. However, the foreperson indicated she was a friend of a sports writer with Independent Newspapers and was excused. A substitute juror from the stand-by panel will fill the vacancy.
Mr Justice Carney told the jurors the action was a result of an article in the Sunday Independent by well-known broadcaster and writer, Mr Eamon Dunphy.
Any juror who knew Mr De Rossa or Mr Dunphy, or who worked for Independent Newspapers, or anybody who had pre-existing knowledge of any of the matters to be litigated in the action should indicate so before taking the oath.
In the latter category, he did not include some of the barrage of publicity which any adult resident in the country over the last period had been subjected to.
Mr Justice Carney said counsel had indicated the trial would take about three weeks.
He added that he could not but be conscious of the fact that this time last year he had a case which had been called to last for three weeks but ran for IO weeks.
It was up to counsel to prevent that type of situation developing. Counsel on both sides had represented it was a three-week case and that ought to be adhered to.
He told counsel he did not intend to entertain "guenlla warfare" being carried on in the absence of the jury.
Any application to send out the jury would not necessarily be entertained. This was a trial not by the judge, but by the jury on the basis of admissible evidence.