Schoolteacher Enoch Burke’s substantial legal bills continue to rise after yet another judge made yet another costs order against him.
The two year dispute in the civil courts between Mr Burke and Wilson’s Hospital School in Co Westmeath is conservatively estimated to have run up hundreds of thousands of euros in legal costs to date and it may be far from over.
On Monday, the High Court’s Mr Justice Mark Sanfey said it would be an “affront to justice” not to award costs to the school against Mr Burke of his failed bid to overturn a May 2023 court order upholding his August 2022 suspension.
Arising from his behaviour in court at the opening of the full hearing concerning the validity of his suspension, Mr Burke was excluded from participation and the matter was heard and determined by Mr Justice Alexander Owens last year in his absence.
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The judge granted the school a permanent injunction restraining Mr Burke from attending at the school.
Mr Burke’s contempt of court orders to stay away from the school, which dismissed him as a teacher last January, has led to him serving periods of imprisonment for contempt extending to more than 400 days over the past two years.
He was released from Mountjoy Prison by court order last June despite his failure to purge his contempt of earlier orders not to attend at the school.
On July 19th last, Mr Justice Sanfey rejected arguments by Mr Burke over the validity of Mr Justice Owens’ orders. Since that judgment was given, Mr Burke resumed attending outside the school after it reopened last week following the summer holidays.
The school had sought its costs of the unsuccessful July application by Mr Burke. He opposed the school being awarded its costs, arguing an “exceptional issue of constitutional justice existed”.
He contended, among other arguments, the judge had not dealt with the central issue in the case, an alleged “lack of legal basis” for the then school principal’s request to teachers to address a student by their chosen name and the pronouns ‘they/them’.
Rejecting that and other arguments made in Mr Burke’s written submissions over costs, Mr Justice Sanfey said Mr Burke was “entirely unsuccessful” in his application. His written submissions were essentially an attempt to reargue it, and to raise grounds rejected by the court, he said.
There was “nothing to suggest” it was reasonable for Mr Burke to have raised or pursued any of the issues in his application, he said.
“The application was inappropriate and should not have been made,” he said.
The school had been “entirely successful” in defending it and the only “affront to justice” would be if the school was not awarded its costs, he found.
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