Galway County Registrar confirms that the case might be assigned to a new Judge
In February 2020 Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty rejected our High Court application for the recusal of Judge Petria McDonnell. We had objected to Judge McDonnell hearing our case against NUI Galway. Judge McDonnell incorrectly stated that our religious discrimination claims were ‘moot’, i.e. irrelevant and unnecessary, at the outset of a Circuit Court hearing in Galway on 18 June 2019.
The substantive part of Ms Justice Gearty’s order of 18 February 2020 reads as follows:
‘It is ordered that the said appeal be refused and the matter be remitted to Galway Circuit Court to be listed before a Judge assigned to the Galway Circuit at the next Sitting to be held at Galway’.
It is not possible to appeal Ms Justice Gearty’s ruling to a Superior Court. The next step is thus to proceed again to a hearing of the religious discrimination case before Galway Circuit Court.
Directly after the ruling of the High Court, Galway Circuit Court proposed dates in March 2020 for the hearing of the case before Judge Petria McDonnell. We agreed to these dates. However the matter did not go on for hearing at that point as NUI Galway’s legal team stated that they were in difficulty for the March dates due to other Court commitments.
We were listed for the County Registrar’s Callover on 16 June 2020. At the Callover, the County Registrar mentioned the difficulties in scheduling a hearing for the case due to its length. The case is expected to take three days at hearing. Galway Circuit Court was to revert to us in due course.
Significantly, the County Registrar confirmed that the case might not be heard by Judge Petria McDonnell going forward. Referencing the order of the High Court, she stated: ‘The High Court have basically said that any Judge can hear it’.
We have not heard from Galway Circuit Court since the Callover in June 2020. Earlier this month we wrote to the County Registrar to remind her that we are waiting to hear from her. We will provide a further update in due course.
