A high court judge yesterday strongly criticised "obstructive tactics" by defendants who are funded by legal aid in actions taken against them by the Criminal Assets Bureau.
The judge complained that multiple applications by such defendants had clogged up the business of the court and led to little return in the actions.
Mr Justice O'Sullivan said it appeared that many defendants in the CAB cases had little interest in finalising their cases and that this situation was aided and abetted by the availability of legal aid for them.
He said many of the cases were characterised by those involved making multiple, repeated and often over-elaborate preliminary applications, all funded by the taxpayer, regardless of outcome. While conceding that the legislation under which the CAB acted was relatively new and might involve difficult questions of law, he said this did not provide a full explanation for the "bogged down, cluttered up, confused and near stagnant state" of the court list of CAB cases.
The judge made his remarks after dismissing a legal challenge by "Mrs M", wife of a man against whom the CAB is taking an action. The man's trial is planned for March 14th next.
Mrs M had challenged an injunction granted by Mr Justice O'Higgins. In April 1997, he ordered that Mr M, or any person having notice of the making of the order, should not reduce Mr M's assets below £1.625 million.
With the benefit of legal aid from the CAB (Ad-Hoc) Legal Aid Scheme, Mrs M had argued that the order did not apply to her and, if there was such an order, it should be discharged. Yesterday, Mr Justice O'Sullivan rejected her argument and ruled that the injunction granted against Mr M also clearly "caught" Mrs M.
The judge pointed out that proceedings by the CAB against Mr M had been mentioned in court on no fewer than 51 occasions. It had been listed for hearing on 11 occasions. There had been two motions for discovery, five motions to vacate or vary the injunction against Mr M, a motion seeking directions and a motion asking to declare the interim injunction invalid.
The judge criticised the "obstructive tactics" which had been funded on a continuing basis through the legal aid scheme in this case.
A substantial tax claim arose in the case of Mr M, he said. Mrs M had been granted separate legal representation out of the public purse. He believed the vast bulk of the time and effort spent on the application by Mrs M was not justified and he was not satisfied that it was essential that Mrs M should have obtained legal aid for the making of her application.
It seemed to him that the fact that the non-CAB parties had, in most instances, the benefit of a general legal aid certificate meant that one of the major disincentives against wasting court time and other people's money had been removed, because the losing party did not pay in any sense of the word.
Mr Richard Nesbitt SC, for the CAB, applied for costs of the unsuccessful application by Mrs M. Mr Justice O'Sullivan said he would deal with that issue on February 24th.