Background
On 10 January 2021, during Covid-19 movement restrictions, Dolores Webster was present in Dublin city centre near Bachelor’s Walk, where an anti-lockdown protest and convoy was taking place. Garda evidence placed her filming officers, moving through the city with demonstrators, and refusing or failing to provide a reasonable excuse for leaving her residence despite multiple warnings under s. 31A of the Health Act 1947 (as amended). Two summonses were issued: one for failing to comply with a Garda direction and one for leaving her residence without reasonable excuse. Webster did not appear in the District Court and was convicted in absentia in October 2023 and fined €600 in total.
Webster applied for and obtained an extension of time to appeal. The Circuit Court heard the appeal de novo in October 2024. It acquitted her on the failure-to-comply charge for insufficient evidence but upheld the conviction for leaving her residence without reasonable excuse, reducing the fine to €200 after she gave evidence of being a pensioner with two dependents. Webster then brought judicial review proceedings, claiming she had never received the summons, that delay prevented her from gathering evidence, that she could not properly hear the circuit court proceedings due to a hearing impairment, and that her “citizen journalist” attendance and chemist errand constituted lawful excuses. She also brought two ancillary motions: one to strike out the DPP’s Statement of Opposition, and one for a protective costs order (PCO).
The DPP filed detailed opposition grounded on affidavits from three Gardaí. That evidence asserted that Webster had been personally served with the summonses in May 2023, verbally warned of the adjourned hearing date by Sergeant Moulton on O’Connell Street in August 2023, and sent a written reminder in October 2023 — none of which she had disclosed in her grounding affidavit. The DPP also averred that Webster had helped organise the convoy, participated throughout the day, and used a loudspeaker on O’Connell Street after being cautioned. All three motions were heard together by Phelan J. on 4 June 2026.
The Court’s Holding
On the application to strike out the DPP’s Statement of Opposition, Phelan J. refused the relief. The court confirmed that it has jurisdiction — under Order 19 of the Rules of the Superior Courts or its inherent jurisdiction — to strike out pleadings in judicial review, including a Statement of Opposition, but that this power must be exercised sparingly. A respondent in judicial review proceedings faces no minimum threshold permission for what may be pleaded in opposition, and material should only be excluded where it is irrelevant, scandalous, or an abuse of process. The DPP’s opposition was detailed, legally and factually grounded, and directly engaged with Webster’s claims of want of notice, delay, and fair procedures. This was not a case meeting the high bar for strike-out.
The court rejected Webster’s argument that the DPP was improperly relying on material not before the Circuit Court. Phelan J. held that such material can legitimately be placed before a judicial review court for two distinct purposes: first, to provide narrative background relevant to the grounds actually being litigated (which differ from those before the trial court); and second, because relief by way of judicial review is discretionary, meaning the applicant’s candour and overall conduct are properly before the court. Evidence going to whether Webster had in fact received notice of the District Court proceedings was directly relevant to her core complaint about unfairness, and the DPP was duty-bound to place all relevant material before the court. Webster’s decision to seek exclusion of that evidence rather than contest it on affidavit or by cross-examination was a significant factor weighing against her.
On the PCO application, the analysis in the available text indicates the court was closely examining whether the proceedings constituted genuine public interest litigation within the principles identified in Dunne v Minister for the Environment [2007] IESC 60, with the DPP contending the case was personal rather than public in nature, that no exceptional merit was demonstrated, and that the default costs-follow-the-event rule under the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 should apply.
Key Takeaways
- A Statement of Opposition in judicial review proceedings can be struck out, but the jurisdiction is exceptional and exercised only in clear cases of irrelevance, scandal, or abuse of process; a detailed, properly verified opposition raising genuine factual and legal disputes will stand.
- Material not before the trial court is admissible in judicial review proceedings both to supply narrative context and — crucially — because judicial review relief is discretionary; an applicant’s candour, conduct, and credibility are legitimately before the reviewing court even if those matters were not in issue at first instance.
- An applicant who challenges the DPP’s evidence by seeking to exclude it, rather than filing a replying affidavit or seeking cross-examination, is in a weak position to complain that the evidence is unfair or prejudicial.
- The mere fact that an offence charge was dismissed on appeal for insufficient evidence does not require a court to read that acquittal as establishing any broader factual prejudice to the applicant or as undermining the finding on a separate charge.
Why It Matters
This ruling is a useful restatement of the limits on a judicial review applicant’s ability to control the evidentiary record. It confirms that the discretionary character of judicial review relief means courts may weigh surrounding circumstances — including an applicant’s candour and conduct — that would be inadmissible or irrelevant at the underlying criminal trial. Practitioners advising litigants in person on judicial review will note the court’s emphasis on engaging with the DPP’s evidence substantively rather than procedurally, and the risks of a strategy focused on excluding material rather than rebutting it.
The case also arises from the wave of prosecutions under the Covid-19 health restriction regulations and will be of interest to those tracking how Irish courts handle challenges to convictions from that period. Phelan J.’s analysis of the interplay between de novo Circuit Court appeals and subsequent judicial review proceedings — and in particular the finding that a de novo hearing can cure defects in earlier District Court notice — provides practical guidance on the scope of fair procedure arguments in this context.