June hearing for Council bid to reverse ruling on parking fines

Date Published: 06-May-2013

By Dara Bradley

Galway City Council’s attempt to get the High Court to overturn a decision by a District Court judge to strike out hundreds of cases of alleged non payment of parking fines in Galway, will be heard oon June 10.

The local authority’s legal team was in the High Court on Tuesday of last week seeking a judicial review of a decision last December made by Judge Alan Mitchell.

The Council was successful in its attempt to have the case heard and there was no objection to the hearing date.

At the December special sitting of Galway District Court, 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 on the basis that they did not refer to section 3 of the 1975 Traffic Wardens Act, which deals with the issue of fixed charge notices issued by a traffic warden in respect of fixed charged offences, such as parking offences.

In March, the Council’s legal representatives argued in the High Court that the Judge had erred in law and acted outside of his jurisdiction by striking out the summons. Counsel said the summonses did not need to refer to Section 3 of the 1975 Act.

They argued the summonses, which were issued under the Road Traffic Acts, specified all the relevant ingredients of alleged offences, and were not defective. None of those summoned suffered any prejudice by the absence of the Section 3 reference, they said.

Any revenue raised by fines imposed by the courts will go to the court and not the Council.

Read more in today’s Connacht Sentinel