Judge throws out 430 parking summonses

A District Court judge struck out over four hundred parking summonses this week, amid concerns that procedures employed by Galway City Council in initiating legal proceedings against motorists for illegal parking were “ambiguous and unclear”.

Judge Alan Mitchell based his decision to strike out 431 summonses on a 1986 Supreme Court ruling , which found, (in the case of Dublin Corporation v Ashley), that that Corporation’s Chief Executive Order (which was required from its City Manager to initiate legal proceedings in rates cases), did not comply with the requirements of the relevant Act because it was not “precise, certain and clear with no ambiguity.”

In striking out the Galway summonses, Judge Mitchell said he believed the Chief Executive Order (formerly known as the Manager’s Order), issued by a council official on behalf of Galway City Council’s Chief Executive Officer to initiate legal proceedings was “ambiguous and unclear”, as it did not comply with the requirements of the [Road Traffic] Act – and the Supreme Court – because it only listed the parking ticket numbers of each offender and not their corresponding name, address and particulars of offence.

Galway City Council solicitor, Edward Molloy, argued there was no ambiguity and the Order was quite clear because the council official – who had been delegated to issue the Chief Executive Order on behalf of the Chief Executive Officer – did have the names, addresses and particulars of offence along with the corresponding parking ticket numbers in front of him when he made the Executive Order directing the prosecutions.

Judge Mitchell said those details (names, addresses and offence) should have been attached to the Executive Order to render it unambiguous and clear before the court.
To read the rest of the court case and Judge’s comments, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. Buy a digital edition of this week’s paper here, or download the app for Android or iPhone.