Practice Direction CA 14 as a Gateway to the Greendale Jurisdiction: Finality, Recusal, and the High Threshold for Reopening Court of Appeal Orders

1. Introduction

This ruling concerns an attempt by the applicant (a litigant in person, described in the ruling as “seasoned and determined” and elsewhere named as Mr. Gaultier) to reopen a final Court of Appeal decision refusing him an extension of time to appeal a High Court judgment. The underlying proceedings arose from District Court public order charges connected with an incident on 25 August 2019, and the applicant’s unsuccessful attempt to obtain an anonymisation order in the District Court (on the basis that his children might be witnesses).

The High Court (Barr J.) refused certiorari in judicial review of the District Court refusal: [2024] IEHC 544. The applicant did not appeal within time and later sought an extension of time in the Court of Appeal; that extension application was refused in [2025] IECA 190. The present application invoked Practice Direction CA 14 (applications to vary or rescind a final Court of Appeal judgment or order), and also sought—at least in substance— to revisit recusal refusals made during the earlier extension-of-time proceedings.

The core issues were:

• When, and on what threshold, can the Court of Appeal revisit a final judgment/order?
• What is the function of Practice Direction CA 14 in regulating that exceptional jurisdiction?
• Can alleged inconsistency, alleged legal error, or dissatisfaction with a judge’s reasoning in other cases ground recusal or justify reopening?
• Does electronic delivery of a judgment breach the constitutional requirement that justice be administered in public?
• What (if any) role did EU law arguments on judicial independence and impartiality play on the facts?

2. Summary of the Judgment

The Court refused the application. It held that the applicant did not engage with, still less satisfy, the stringent requirements for reopening a final appellate decision. The Court reiterated that the exceptional jurisdiction to revisit a final judgment/order—first identified in In re Greendale Developments Ltd. (No. 3) [2000] 2 I.R. 514—requires circumstances where, through no fault of the applicant, the impugned order operates to deny justice and clearly breaches constitutional rights, and where the applicant shows “cogent and substantive grounds” objectively sufficient to justify a merits hearing of the review application.

The Court also rejected collateral arguments advanced by the applicant, including:

• That electronic delivery of judgment is contrary to public administration of justice.
• That the Court had previously “accepted” a review application without CA 14 in Gaultier v. The Registrar of Companies [2025] IECA 93 (the Court held this was a misunderstanding; it had not reopened the substantive appeal).
• That supposed inconsistency in applying CA 14 affected the validity of recusal refusals (chronologically impossible and substantively insufficient).
• That EU-law references (including “the Portuguese Judge v. Tribunal of Contas” and Article 19.1 TEU) established a different test that would compel reopening on these facts.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

(a) In re Greendale Developments Ltd. (No. 3) [2000] 2 I.R. 514

This is the doctrinal anchor for the Court’s approach. The ruling treats Greendale as establishing an exceptional, tightly confined jurisdiction to revisit a final appellate decision where the order, through no fault of the applicant, both denies justice and clearly breaches constitutional rights. The Court emphasised two cumulative controls:

• Substantive threshold: a clear denial of justice and clear constitutional rights breach (through no fault of the applicant).
• Procedural/permission-like threshold: “cogent and substantive grounds” objectively sufficient to justify a review hearing on the merits.

The applicant’s materials were found to fall far short of this framework; indeed, the Court noted he did not meaningfully grapple with it.

(b) [2025] IECA 190 (Burns J., with Faherty and Allen JJ. concurring)

This earlier decision (in the same overall dispute) supplied the background and, critically, the prior findings that: the applicant failed to explain the failure to appeal in time and subsequent delay, and failed to identify any arguable ground of appeal. The present ruling is shaped by that procedural history: it is not a second bite at the extension-of-time application, but an attempt to reopen a final appellate disposition—hence the Greendale threshold and CA 14 regime become central.

(c) Gaultier v. The Registrar of Companies [2025] IECA 58 and Gaultier v. The Registrar of Companies [2025] IECA 93

These cases mattered in two distinct ways:

• As the factual basis for recusal arguments: The applicant attacked passages in [2025] IECA 93 (and aspects of the overall saga) to claim incompetence, lack of integrity, insult, and alleged denial of rights.
• As the alleged comparator for “inconsistent” CA 14 application: The applicant claimed the Court had entertained a review application “before perfection” without reliance on CA 14 in [2025] IECA 93, and therefore could not insist on CA 14 in his present attempt.

The Court’s response was decisive: the applicant misread [2025] IECA 93. It did not reopen the substantive appeal. Rather, at a costs hearing, the Court recorded that the applicant attempted to re-argue the merits and held that this was misconceived and inappropriate. Far from demonstrating flexible or selective reopening, the earlier decision illustrated the Court refusing to “reventilate” substantive issues on a costs application.

(d) The State (Quinn) v. Ryan [1965] I.R. 70

The applicant’s grievance included Allen J.’s description of a statement by Ó Dálaigh C.J. as “an observation” rather than a “doctrine”. In the present ruling, this dispute is treated as paradigmatically insufficient to ground recusal: at its height it alleges error of law or characterisation, not objective bias.

(e) A.G. v. A Judge of the District Court [2025] IECA 129

The applicant also pointed to Allen J.’s concurrence with McDonald J. in this case, complaining about the conclusion that the applicant lacked a genuine desire to invoke the criminal process when seeking District Court summonses against prosecuting Gardaí. Again, the Court treated this as, at most, a complaint of legal error, incapable of grounding recusal.

(f) Hughes v. Worldport Communications Inc. [2005] IEHC 189 and Friedman v. Residential Tenancies Board [2025] IEHC 477

These cases were invoked by the applicant to support a “consistency” principle (following decisions of courts of coordinate jurisdiction). The Court did not accept that this line of authority advanced the applicant’s thesis that any perceived inconsistency in applying CA 14 rendered actions “illegal and void ab initio”. The ruling implicitly distinguishes between:

• Consistency as a judicial discipline (relevant to precedent and stability), and
• Consistency as a justiciable ground to reopen final orders or to prove bias without meeting the objective-bias test and the Greendale threshold.

(g) “the Portuguese Judge v. Tribunal of Contas” and Article 19.1 TEU

The applicant anchored his submissions in EU “criteria of independence and impartiality” and rule-of-law consistency, but the Court found that he: (i) did not clearly identify the EU authorities relied upon, (ii) did not specify any divergence between EU standards and Irish standards on impartial tribunals, and (iii) did not connect EU principles to any concrete, objectively verifiable basis for bias or denial of a fair hearing on the facts. EU-law framing did not displace the need for cogent, objective grounds and did not alter the outcome.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

(a) Practice Direction CA 14: not an “impediment” but a “gateway”

The Court endorsed Allen J.’s earlier explanation that CA 14 regulates invocation of the Court’s inherent jurisdiction to revisit final decisions. It is not a barrier erected against justice; it is the procedural channel through which an applicant must bring a request to activate an exceptional jurisdiction. This matters because the applicant repeatedly tried to characterise CA 14 as unconstitutional/contrary to EU law by reason of alleged inconsistency in its deployment. The Court’s approach rejects that characterisation: the existence of a structured filter (format limits, defined procedure, threshold focus) is aligned with finality and orderly administration of justice.

(b) Finality and the Greendale threshold: exceptional means exceptional

The ruling reinforces that reopening a final appellate judgment is not a general appeal on the merits, nor a corrective mechanism for arguable legal error, nor a vehicle for dissatisfaction with reasoning. The applicant’s papers were criticised for failing to confront:

• the “through no fault of the applicant” element,
• the requirement of a clear denial of justice and clear constitutional breach, and
• the necessity for objectively sufficient, cogent grounds to justify even a merits hearing.

The Court thus positions the Greendale jurisdiction as a constitutional safety-valve, not a routine “review” tier.

(c) Recusal: alleged error of law (even strongly alleged) is not objective bias

The Court’s reasoning draws a clean boundary: complaints that a judge mischaracterised a quotation, omitted passages, expressed an unwelcome view, concurred in another judgment, or reached a contested conclusion are, at their height, allegations of legal error. Such allegations do not establish a “reasonable apprehension of objective bias”. This is particularly important where the applicant’s recusal arguments relied heavily on:

• disagreement with judicial analysis in prior, separate litigation, and
• the notion that a judge’s rejection of the applicant’s arguments elsewhere demonstrates incompetence or lack of integrity.

The Court treated this as an impermissible substitution of merits-based dissatisfaction for the objective-bias standard.

(d) Chronology and relevance: the “inconsistency” argument could not do the work asked of it

Even if inconsistency were potentially relevant (a proposition the Court did not accept on these facts), the Court identified a fundamental chronological flaw: the alleged April 2025 handling of matters in [2025] IECA 93 pre-dated the July 2025 recusal applications, and therefore could not have influenced them. The Court further held that the applicant misunderstood the earlier decision in any event.

(e) Public justice and electronic delivery

The applicant alleged that electronic delivery of the September 2025 judgment offended the constitutional requirement that justice be administered in public. The Court rejected this categorically: electronic delivery (like reading a summary with subsequent circulation of the full text) is not inconsistent with public justice. Beyond being wrong in law, the argument could not plausibly meet the reopening threshold.

(f) Abuse of process and collateral challenges

The Court’s discussion at paragraph 33 links the applicant’s conduct to an earlier observation by Allen J. that advance warning would have precipitated collateral challenges to long-settled orders, amounting to abuse of process. This reflects a broader concern: reopening applications must not become an instrument for serial relitigation by indirection.

3.3 Impact

The ruling’s practical and doctrinal impact is threefold:

• Reinforcement of appellate finality: The Court confirms that reopening is reserved for truly exceptional cases meeting the Greendale standard and supported by objectively cogent grounds.
• Clarification of CA 14’s role: By describing CA 14 as the “gateway” to the inherent jurisdiction, the Court strengthens the legitimacy of procedural filtering in final-judgment revisit applications and discourages informal or last-minute attempts (e.g., by email) to reverse outcomes.
• Containment of recusal-as-litigation-strategy: The ruling underscores that recusal is not a remedy for alleged legal error or for adverse judicial engagement in previous cases. This helps protect the administration of justice from repetitive, personality-focused challenges in place of appealable points.

For future litigants—particularly litigants in person—the decision signals that: (i) EU law references to judicial independence and the rule of law will not substitute for concrete, objective evidence of bias or denial of a fair hearing, and (ii) applications to reopen must be framed within the established Irish threshold and procedure, not as broad critiques of “inconsistency” or institutional legitimacy.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• “Perfected” order: an order formally finalised and recorded by the court office. Once perfected, the scope to revisit it is extremely limited.
• Inherent jurisdiction to reopen: a narrow, exceptional power the court may exercise to prevent grave injustice—distinct from an appeal.
• The Greendale test: reopening requires (a) no fault by the applicant, (b) denial of justice, and (c) a clear constitutional rights breach, plus objectively cogent grounds to justify a review hearing.
• Recusal: a judge stepping aside where a fair-minded observer would reasonably apprehend bias. Disagreeing with a judge’s legal reasoning is not enough.
• “Void ab initio”: treated as invalid from the outset. Courts are cautious about such claims where they function as collateral attacks on final orders.
• Collateral challenge / abuse of process: attempting to undermine final decisions indirectly in later proceedings, rather than using proper appeals or permitted review routes.
• Public administration of justice: justice must be open and accessible; the Court held electronic delivery/circulation of judgments is compatible with this requirement.

5. Conclusion

A G v The Director of Public Prosecutions [2026] IECA 4 consolidates a strict approach to finality in the Court of Appeal. It reiterates that CA 14 structures access to an exceptional inherent jurisdiction and that the Greendale threshold is demanding by design. Alleged inconsistency, dissatisfaction with prior judgments, and assertions of legal error—whether framed in domestic or EU rule-of-law language—do not, without concrete and objective grounds, justify recusal or reopening of a final appellate determination.