Donegal-based Garda Keith Harrison has begun a High Court challenge seeking to quash findings made against him in reports from the Disclosures Tribunal.
Harrison is claiming that Tribunal chairman Mr Justice Peter Charleton was biased due to an alleged prior professional involvement with Donegal’s Chief Superintendent Terry McGinn, who was a witness before the tribunal.
The Disclosures Tribunal report found that all allegations of Garda Keith Harrison and Marissa Simms examined by the tribunal were “entirely without any validity”.
Now, Harrison has launched proceedings aimed at quashing the report’s findings about him.
RTE News reports that Harrison has alleged prior engagement between Mr Justice Charleton and Chief Supt McGinn when she was the garda liaison to the Morris Tribunal, which considered allegations about gardaí in Donegal in 2002-05 when Mr Justice Charleton was that tribunal’s Senior Counsel.
Solicitors for Garda Harrison say in light of the alleged prior involvement wrote to the tribunal seeking to have the reports about their client set aside.
The tribunal said in a reply that the steps sought on Garda Harrison’s behalf “were absurd and repugnant to the duty to the Oireachtas and the people of Ireland”.
In his action, Garda Harrison seeks an order from the High Court quashing findings made in the tribunal’s second interim report and the findings of the third interim report in so far as it relates to Garda Harrison.
He also seeks orders prohibiting the further publication of the second interim report and the parts of the third interim report that relate to him, and that the judge is precluded from dealing with any other matters relating to Garda Harrison and the tribunal.
He further seeks a declaration that the judge has acted in breach of the garda’s rights to natural and constitutional justice and under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Permission to bring the action was granted, on an ex parte basis, by Mr Justice Seamus Noonan, at today’s sitting of the High Court.
The judge said he was satisfied that arguable grounds had been raised to allow Garda Harrison bring the action had been raised.
The case will return before the courts in two weeks’ time.