Teacher Enoch Burke’s mother was escorted by gardaí from the Court of Appeal on Friday after voicing strong objections to the court’s decision not to grant her incarcerated son an appeal date until next February over various High Court orders.
There were heated exchanges in the Court of Appeal on Friday morning after Mr Justice John Edwards, who was making directions concerning the hearing of various appeals, said several times the court lists were full and there was no appeal date available before February 16th next.
Mr Burke, his sister Ammi, a solicitor, and parents Martina and Sean all urged the judge to direct an urgent appeal hearing concerning High Court orders restraining him attending at a midlands school after it suspended his employment pending a disciplinary process.
Wilson’s Hospital School in Co Westmeath initiated the process in August after Mr Burke publicly voiced his objections to a request to teachers by the school principal to call a transitioning pupil by a new name and use the “they” pronoun when referring to the pupil. Mr Burke made his objections at the close of a church service to mark the school’s anniversary and at a dinner event on the same occasion.
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On the school’s application, Mr Burke was jailed for contempt of the court orders in early September.
On Friday, he told Mr Justice Edwards his appeal concerned his guaranteed constitutional rights to freedom of expression and freedom of religious belief and was extremely urgent and of public importance. The High Court had not addressed the constitutional issues, he said.
He has gone from being “a first class teacher whose students have won awards to sitting in a six by 12 foot prison cell”.
After his mother Martina loudly described the judge’s decision not to fix an urgent hearing as a “disgrace” and made further interventions, including describing judges as “corrupt”, gardaí, at the judge’s request, escorted Mrs Burke from the courtroom.
At one point, after Ammi Burke made some interventions on her brother’s behalf, including describing what was happening as “a disgrace”, the judge sought an apology and when he failed to get one, said he would direct that Ms Burke be referred to the Law Society.
In further exchanges, after Sean Burke intervened and Ms Burke said she “did not shout” at the court, the judge said he was rescinding that direction. “We’ll say no more about it,” he said.
Mr Burke himself was twice removed from the court by direction of the judge over interventions after the judge had said all matters in court must be heard “with decorum”.
The mention of the case ended with the judge reiterating that he would list the appeal on February 16th.
Mr Burke responded that his case was “just not important” to the judge and his religious rights did not matter. “It is a catastrophic failure if you think this case has nothing to do with religious beliefs,” he told the judge.
At the outset, Mr Burke had asked the judge to lift the orders granted by the High Court but Mr Justice Edwards said this was a case management hearing and he could not make substantive orders.
Mr Burke said the High Court had failed to deal “in any sense” with his constitutional rights to freedom of expression and religious freedom. “These are guaranteed rights, not a lottery ticket, and you come to court to have them vindicated.”
The courts have a legal duty to consider the whole case and the High Court had failed to do so, he said. He said one judge had said the case was “not about transgenderism” but the report grounding his suspension “had transgenderism all over it”.
In the High Court earlier, a newspaper undertook not to further publish an article which Mr Burke claims contained false and defamatory allegations that he was moved to another part of Mountjoy Prison because other prisoners found him “annoying”.
The article had been taken down on October 12th and the undertaking was being provided on a without prejudice basis, Ronan Lupton SC, for MediaHuis Ireland, publisher of the Sunday Independent, said. Mr Burke would be given notice of any intention to republish it, counsel said.
The article was published in the Sunday Independent last weekend and Mr Burke, while accepting the undertaking from its editor, intends to continue with defamation proceedings concerning it, Mr Justice Brian O’Moore was told.
The judge, despite strong objections from Mr Burke, who said he wanted his appeal decided before a full hearing of the proceedings between him and the school, said he would case manage the proceedings and made directions, including for Mr Burke to file a defence by November 7th.
