High Court: Irish Countrywomen’s Association acted in breach of its Constitution

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2018] IEHC 551
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  High Court
• Judge:
  Ms Justice Úna Ní Raifeartaigh

In a recently published judgment, Ms Justice Una Ní Raifeartaigh granted declaratory relief concerning breaches of the ICA Constitution and ordered that an ‘entirely fresh’ ballot should be held within two months.

Background

Six members of the ICA – Patricia Madden, Shirley Power, Alice Rowley, Catherine Spillane, Concepta Lillis, and Joanne Dunphy Allen – brought proceedings against the ICA and the Countrywomen’s Trust in relation to national elections held within the ICA in 2018. The election concerned the selection of candidates to sit on the National Executive Board, an election governed by the Constitution of the ICA.

In January 2018, voting papers were issued by post, to be returned by post, in accordance with the Constitution of the ICA. In this round of ballot papers, four additional sets were erroneously sent out to the Association’s National President, National Secretary, National Treasurer, and the Chairperson of the National Advisory Committee – leading a second round of ballot papers being issued in March 2018, to be returned by 27 April 2018. Further dispute within the ICA led to the 2018 election process being abandoned, and the ballot papers were never counted. At an EGM held in April 2016, a motion was passed which deferred the elections for six months and stipulated that the National President should remain on in a caretaker role as National President and Director of Elections. At an AGM held in May 2018, a further motion was passed, which stipulated, inter alia, that the 2018 election process be abandoned and fresh elections be completed within 6 months and no later than the 2019 AGM.

The proceedings were originally initiated by Ms Patricia Madden who complained that a number of serious procedural irregularities had taken place in breach of the Constitution of the ICA.

High Court

In the High Court, Ms Justice Una Ní Raifeartaigh summarised the considerations of the Court as being whether:

1. Declaratory reliefs should be granted in respect of the alleged irregularities; and/or
2. Injunctive relief should be granted in respect of the second ballot i.e. essentially an order that the second ballot should be counted and that persons thereby elected should take their places on the NEB. 

Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh said it was ‘clear from the affidavits… that there is currently, at least in some quarters in the ICA, an inflamed atmosphere and that emotions concerning these elections have been running high and that bitter personal animosities have been generated’.  As such, attempts at informal resolution did not succeed.

Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh was satisfied that the EGM in April and the AGM in May were in breach of the Constitution of the ICA. Furthermore, because some Guilds of the ICA ‘probably did not vote’ in the April 2018 ballot, the second round ballot papers were ‘unlikely to contain a complete expression of the democratic will of the ICA’.

As such, Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh proposed granting the following reliefs:

1. Declarations (2), (10) and (11) in the Notice of Motion dated 6 June 2018, as well as amended number (7) – all concerning breaches of the ICA Constitution;
2. An order that a fresh ballot be held and counted within two months i.e. by the end of September 2018; and 
3. An order that the persons currently serving on the NEB stay in place until the elections have been carried out, in order to manage the ordinary and day-to-day business of the ICA. 

Granting the reliefs, Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh added that ‘an entirely fresh ballot’ should be held and ‘not one necessarily confined to the candidates who stood in the last election’.

• by Seosamh Gráinséir for Irish Legal News