APPROVED [2025] IEHC 338
2024 1425 JR THE HIGH COURT JUDICIAL REVIEW BETWEEN BLAKE JONES APPLICANT AND SALIU OBISESAN RESPONDENT JUDGMENT of Mr. Justice Garrett Simons delivered on 18 June 2025 1. This matter comes before the High Court by way of an application for leave to apply for judicial review. The leave application is beset with procedural difficulties: the incorrect party has been named as applicant and the three month time-limit under Order 84 RSC has not been complied with. The applicant has sought to remedy these deficiencies by applying to amend the statement of grounds and to substitute a different applicant. For the reasons explained in this judgment, however, the proceedings are beyond rescue. 2. These judicial review proceedings seek to challenge the outcome of earlier debt proceedings. More specifically, Mr. Saliu Obisesan had instituted District Court proceedings against a company known as The Game Changer Multimedia Ltd ("the company"). The District Court made a decree in favour of Mr. Obisesan in the sum of €1,250 on 19 February 2024. Thereafter, the company filed an appeal to the Circuit Court. The appeal came on for hearing on 14 May 2024. In circumstances where there was no appearance on behalf of the company, as appellant, the appeal was struck out. A decree after appeal was subsequently entered on 2 July 2024 by the District Court Office. 3. The company filed two motions in the Circuit Court Office seeking, respectively, an order setting aside the decision striking out the appeal on 14 May 2024 and an order staying enforcement of the judgment debt in the interim. These motions were filed on 9 July 2024 and 6 August 2024. 4. The first of these motions came on for hearing before the Circuit Court on 5 November 2024. The Circuit Court refused the relief sought. It is apparent from the transcript of the hearing that the judge took the view that he did not have authority to set aside an order made by another judge of the Circuit Court. The judge suggested that the only remedy which might be available to the company would be by way of judicial review before the High Court. 5. Mr. Blake Jones asserts that he is a director and shareholder of the company. Mr. Jones attended at the Central Office of the High Court on 15 November 2024, seemingly with the intention of filing judicial review proceedings in the name of the company. In the event, however, the statement of grounds was amended, in manuscript, to identify Mr. Jones as the sole applicant. The statement of grounds was then filed. The only relief sought in the proceedings is to set aside "the default judgment" of the Circuit Court on 14 May 2024. Crucially, no relief has been sought in relation to the omission of the Circuit Court to grant relief pursuant to the two motions on 5 November 2024. 6. The rationale for the decision to name Mr. Jones as the applicant has not been properly explained on affidavit. However, it seems from what Mr. Jones has since said in oral submission that it came about as the result of an official in the Central Office having explained to him that, save in exceptional circumstances, proceedings in the name of a company may only be brought through a solicitor. (See, generally, Allied Irish Bank plc v. Aqua Fresh Fish Ltd [2018] IESC 49, [2019] 1 IR 517). It seems that it was sought to overcome this difficulty by naming Mr. Jones as applicant in lieu of the company. This change gave rise to its own difficulties: Mr. Jones does not have a "sufficient interest" to maintain these judicial review proceedings as required under Order 84, rule 20 of the Rules of the Superior Courts. As discussed further at paragraph 12 below, the company is a separate legal entity, and any proceedings should have been taken in its sole name. 7. Following a number of adjournments, the application for leave to apply for judicial review came on for hearing on 24 February 2025. On that date, Mr. Jones indicated that he wished to arrange for the company to be represented by solicitor and counsel. The proceedings were adjourned to allow a solicitor to come on record for the company. A notice of appointment of solicitor was filed in the Central Office of the High Court on 7 April 2025. An amended statement of grounds was also filed. 8. This court made an order on 28 April 2025 allowing the transcript of the hearing before the Circuit Court on 5 November 2024 to be taken up. 9. The leave application was ultimately heard on 4 June 2025 and judgment reserved to today's date. 11. The first reason relates to the three month time-limit prescribed under Order 84, rule 21. The only judgment/order of the Circuit Court which it is sought to set aside in the original statement of grounds is that made on 14 May 2024. The judicial review proceedings were not instituted until 15 November 2024, that is, some six months after the date of the impugned judgment/order. An extension of time had not been sought in the statement of grounds. Accordingly, leave would have had to be refused for non-compliance with the time-limit. 13. Mr. Jones has sought, belatedly, to overcome these difficulties by arranging for a solicitor to come on record for the company in April 2025 and to instruct counsel on its behalf. The company has sought to be substituted as applicant in lieu of Mr. Jones and has sought to amend the statement of grounds by adding a claim for relief in respect of the Circuit Court hearing on 5 November 2024. 15. Having regard to this finding, it is not necessary, strictly speaking, to address the separate application for leave to amend the statement of grounds, i.e. by adding a claim for relief in respect of the Circuit Court hearing on 5 November 2024. For completeness, however, it should be recorded that the application for leave to amend would be refused for the following reasons. 16. The principles governing an application for leave to amend a statement of grounds in judicial review proceedings have been authoritatively stated by the Supreme Court in Keegan v. Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission [2012] IESC 29, [2012] 2 IR 570. The Supreme Court commenced its analysis with the following general observation on the interaction between time-limits and the amendment of pleadings (at paragraphs 31 and 32 of the reported judgment): "Persons are permitted to seek review of administrative decisions which affect them within prescribed times and on grounds in law which they propose and which the courts grant them leave to argue. The object of the system is to strike a fair balance between the certainty and security of administrative decisions and the rights of persons affected by them who wish to contest them. The strict imposition of time limits is mitigated by the power of the court to permit an application outside the permitted time, provided the court is persuaded that there is good reason for the delay and that no other party is adversely or unfairly prejudiced." 17. The Supreme Court went on to state that an applicant, who seeks leave to amend outside the prescribed time-limit, must explain his delay and his failure to include the proposed new ground in his original statement of grounds. The Supreme Court rejected an argument that it is a precondition to a successful application for leave to amend that new facts must have come to light. 18. The Supreme Court then referenced non-exhaustive examples of the type of circumstances which might justify leave to amend: (i) the new ground might arise out of the answer to the proceedings made by the respondent in its statement of opposition; (ii) the new ground might be based on material of which the applicant was unaware at the time of the application for leave to apply for judicial review; or (iii) the new ground might involve a significant point of law which had previously been overlooked as a result of a clear error on the part of the applicant's lawyers. 20. The application for leave to substitute The Game Changer Multimedia Ltd as applicant in these proceedings in lieu of Mr. Jones is refused. The application for leave to amend the statement of grounds is also refused. (Paragraphs 14 to 19 above). 21. The application for leave to apply for judicial review pursuant to the original statement of grounds is refused in circumstances where the applicant does not have a "sufficient interest" in the matter and where the proceedings were instituted outside the three month time-limit. (Paragraphs 10 to 12 above). 22. No costs order is required in circumstances where the leave application has been heard ex parte. The respondent cannot, by definition, have incurred any costs in respect of an application of which he was not on notice. Appearances Zéph Ngaliema Mukoko for the applicant instructed by ACSK Solicitors LLPIntroduction
Procedural history
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Conclusion and form of order