Galway City Council wants the High Court to overturn a district judge’s decision striking out more than 330 cases of alleged non-payment of parking fines.
At a special sitting of Galway District Court last December, Judge Alan Mitchell struck out 338 summonses relating to alleged parking and road traffic offences after finding the summonses were defective.
Judge Mitchell struck out the summonses because they failed to refer to section 3 of the 1975 Traffic Wardens Act. Section 3 deals with the issuing of fixed-charge notices by a traffic warden for fixed-charged offences, such as parking offences.
The 330 notices state an alleged offence has been committed but the person will not be prosecuted if a fine is paid within a fixed period of time.
Yesterday, Stephen Dodd, for the council, argued the judge erred in law and acted outside of his jurisdiction by striking out the summonses. The summonses were not defective and did not need to refer to section 3 of the 1975 Act, he argued.
The summonses were issued under the Road Traffic Acts and specified all the relevant ingredients of the alleged offences, he said. None of those summonsed had suffered any prejudice by the absence of the section 3 reference, counsel added.
The council “needed clarification” by the High Court of the point raised at the District Court, he said.
In its judicial review proceedings, the council wants orders quashing the judge’s decision of December 13th last striking out the summonses.
It also claims the judge erred by refusing to grant the council’s application to adjourn the matter when it came before him.
Mr Justice Michael Peart returned the matter to late April.