Enoch Burke wins leave to seek injunction against school disciplinary panel

Ray Managh

School teacher Enoch Burke has been granted leave by the High Court to notify the three-member Disciplinary Appeals Panel of his intention to seek a temporary injunction restraining them from issuing their recommendation in his appeal against his dismissal from Wilson’s Hospital School.

Burke’s application will be heard on Thursday, which, if granted, will in all probability be followed by an application for a permanent High Court restraint on them taking any further steps in his appeal.

His action, for which he was released from prison on Tuesday morning to present to the court, is against panel members Sean O’Longain, Geraldine O’Brien, and Jack Cleary.

The panel has scheduled a meeting for this Saturday to consider further Burke’s appeal, which he is attempting to block on the basis, as he told Mr Justice Barry O’Donnell in court this morning, that panel hearings had been to date devoid of “any sense of natural justice and fair procedures.”

Burke, with the assistance of his brother, Isaac, and sister, Ammi, formally presented his argument to Judge O’Donnell without incident, although several gardaí had been assigned to duty within the court in the event of any difficulty.

In the past, the court heard loud objections by members of the Burke family have led to their being removed from court by gardaí.

Burke was taken by prison van from Mountjoy Jail on Tuesday morning, where he has been imprisoned for contempt of court. He was later returned to prison.

Burke is seeking a number of declarations from the High Court, including that his appeal is remitted to a fresh hearing by a newly constituted panel which does not include any of the three named defendants.

Burke told the court that the Disciplinary Appeals Board had been informed on Monday evening of his application on Tuesday morning and served with papers but he did not see any representative in court.

Judge O’Donnell said he would permit short service on the defendants of Mr Burke’s application for a temporary injunction to be heard on Thursday and directed that he be produced in court by the prison authorities so that he could further make his application to the court.