The extraordinary whack-a-mole nature of the Enoch Burke case continued on Friday with yet another High Court ruling aimed at the History and German teacher who refuses to obey court orders.
In January Mr Justice David Nolan said the case had been before the High Court on more occasions than any other involving a litigant in person and had by that stage involved 41 orders.
Now the judge is contemplating yet another order, this time targeting the approximately €48,000 a year salary Burke continues to receive, despite not having taught at Wilson’s Hospital School, Co Westmeath, since 2022 when he was suspended after getting into a row with the school’s principal.
The attempt to dismiss Burke is bogged down in legal disputes and he continues to refuse to comply with a court order that he stay away from the school. Jailing him didn’t work and when jail was replaced by fines, he refused to pay.
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At the heart of the controversy is what the courts should do when the target of an order in a civil case refuses to comply. There is the obvious potential to bring the law into disrepute, but the State is understandably reluctant to leave someone languishing in jail for an indeterminate amount of time, not least when they have not been found guilty of a criminal offence.
In Burke’s case, the dilemma is compounded by his apparent sense of martyrdom and the relish with which he and his family draw attention to themselves.
The judge is considering using a Garnishee order to direct Burke’s salary towards settling his unpaid fines. If person A is owed money by person B, who in turn is owed money by person C, such an order can direct C to pay money directly to A to settle the debt owed by B.
Any order made for diverting Burke’s income (from one arm of the State to another) will undoubtedly only target some of his salary, as he must not be made destitute. Burke can, and most likely will, appeal any order, thereby adding to the substantial amount of money being wasted on legal fees because of his behaviour. But an attractive feature of the option, from the court’s point of view, is that he cannot prevent the money from being paid over once the order is in place.
Interestingly, Burke continues to attend the school, hanging around the grounds, and the school is not asking the court to again lock him up.
Perhaps this is how the matter will end, with Burke about school grounds, to the bemusement of pupils who know him only as a strange figure who used to feature on the news.
Sometimes legal disputes are not so much solved as managed so they fade away.
