SOME 1,309 votes cast in Garda Representative Association elections are to remain frozen until, at least, the outcome of a High Court challenge to Government legislation by gardai.
The votes were cast in GRA district elections earlier this summer, against the wishes of the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen.
Lawyers and officials for the Minister yesterday succeeded in the High Court in stopping the GRA election count.
Lawyers for the GRA gave an undertaking that the votes will be frozen until a full High Court hearing of the dispute next month.
The GRA said later it would be proceeding with a full High Court hearing, provisionally scheduled for October 22nd, against the "statutory legislation" which has stopped the election. This is the Minister's order, made some weeks ago, deferring the elections until March.
The GRA is expected to make a High Court challenge to the Minister's right to interfere in the internal affairs of the association.
The election count was to take place this week but the ballot papers must remain with the GRA's auditors, Merry Mullan and Co.
Mrs Owen welcomed yesterday's High Court decision and said she was pleased the GRA had agreed to defer any action pending the court hearing. "I am very satisfied with the judgment and I feel the judge understood why I did what I did ... I was disappointed that the GRA had decided to continue with their election in spite of the fact that the legislation had been published," she said.
During the injunction hearing on Thursday, lawyers for the Minister said she was statutorily obliged to regulate the affairs of the association as part of her duty to provide security for the State and for the greater common good.
Mrs Owen's Bill to set up an entirely new representative association is currently at Dail committee stage and is expected to become law before the end of the year. Bill would effectively reconstitute the ORA into a new association which, the Minister hopes, would attract the support of all the officers of garda rank.
However, the GRA is opposed to some of the most important aspects of the Minister's proposals and a GRA conference in Limerick in June voted down a number of the proposals contained in the Minister's Bill.
At present only about 5,000 gardai remain loyal to the GRA, according to submissions to the court. About 2,500, mostly based in Dublin, broke away to form the Garda Federation.
Representatives of a further 1,000 in four rural divisions have boycotted GRA central executive committee meetings since November 1994.
Yesterday's judgment came as a relief to the Minister and to the Department of Justice, which has unsuccessfully attempted to resolve the internal Garda dispute which broke out in May 1994.
If the Minister's case had fallen the Government's ability to use statutory instruments during Dail recesses could have been challenged.
In his judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Geoghegan said the Minister had issued a prima facie set of regulations in directing that the GRA defer its elections. He also commented that the Minister was trying to resolve what had become "open warfare" among Garda representatives.
In his judgment Mr Justice Geoghegan spoke of "a background of considerable dissent among Garda representatives". He said efforts by successive ministers for justice to resolve the dispute through mediation, conciliation, arbitration had all failed.
He added: "It was obviously a matter of public interest that this open warfare within the Garda Siochana should end."