The High Court has refused convicted drugs criminal John Gilligan legal aid for the latest stage of his court battle aimed at stopping the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) securing assets of his worth an estimated €17 million.
Gilligan, who is serving a 20-year jail term for having cannabis for sale or supply over a two-year period, had applied for legal aid under the Attorney General scheme for his constitutional challenge to provisions of the Proceeds Against Crime Act 1996, which provides for the freezing of assets believed to be the proceeds of crime.
Yesterday, Mr Justice Kevin Feeney refused to grant Gilligan legal aid but fixed his case for hearing on June 26th next.
The judge said he was being asked to give legal aid in proceedings, a substantial part of which involved asking the High Court to review an earlier Supreme Court decision which upheld the constitutionality of Section 3 of the 1996 Act. What was now before the court was a "collateral attack" on the Supreme Court decision.
The High Court could not be used as a review court of Supreme Court decisions, the judge said. Court time was precious and the concept of "drip-feed litigation" could not be facilitated. This was an inappropriate case for legal aid.
Earlier, in an affidavit grounding his application, Gilligan denied he had transferred large sums of money from a bank account held in this country into the name of his estranged wife Geraldine. He also denied that he had substantial assets.
His assets had been the subject of a freezing order since July 1997. He had not held a bank account anywhere in the last 20 years, he also said.
Gilligan's solicitor Paul McNally told the court that his client had been granted legal aid in the criminal proceedings relating to him.
Opposing the legal aid application, Mr Paul O'Higgins SC, for the State, said it was clear the Supreme Court had decided that Section 3 of the Proceeds of Crime Act is constitutional and arguments made before that court could not now be made again.
Gilligan lost his final appeal in the Supreme Court in 2005 against his conviction on drug charges.
After a lengthy trial which began in late 2000, the non-jury Special Criminal Court had cleared Gilligan in 2001 of the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin in June 1996 and also acquitted him of arms charges. The court convicted him of having an estimated 20,000kg of cannabis resin over a two-year period and he was jailed for 28 years, reduced on appeal to 20 years.
The confiscation orders sought by the Cab relate to several properties, including Jessbrook Equestrian Centre and lands at Mucklon, Enfield, Co Kildare, and two houses in Lucan, Dublin.
The Cab was granted a High Court order in December 1996 preventing the Gilligans dealing with or otherwise disposing of the properties.