Who is popular today?

An appeal by John Waters and Gemma O’Doherty, against a refusal to permit them to challenge the constitutionality of laws introduced in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, has opened before the Court of Appeal.
The appeal is against the High Court’s refusal to permit the two to bring their challenge and its award of costs of that hearing against them. The appeal, opposed by the State, is being heard by the President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice George Birmingham, Ms Justice John Edwards and Ms Justice Caroline Costello.
In her opening remarks, Ms O’Doherty said the restrictions introduced to counter a virus, she said was the “common cold”, were “barbaric”. Mr Waters said the appeal court should set aside a High Court judgment that he said was “deeply tainted”.
A number of supporters of Ms O’Doherty and Mr Waters protested outside the Four Courts complex over not being permitted to attend the hearing.
The number attending the proceedings has been limited due to the Covid-19 restrictions.
While the applicants are physically in the courtroom the three judges and lawyers for the State respondents are attending via video link. In judicial review proceedings against the State and the Minister for Health, with the Dáil, Seanad and Ceann Comhairle as notice parties, the appellants had sought to have various legislative measures declared unconstitutional and flawed.
Earlier this year Ms O’Doherty and Mr Waters, who represented themselves, sought to challenge legislation including the 2020 Health Preservation and Protection and Other Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act; the 2020 Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act Covid-19 Act and the 1947 Health Act (Affected Areas) Order.
They claimed the laws, and the manner in which they were enacted, are repugnant to several articles of the Constitution including concerning the rights to travel, bodily integrity and the family, and amounted to an “unprecedented suspension” of constitutional rights.
In his judgment last May refusing leave for judicial review, Mr Justice Charles Meenan said their claims were not arguable and they had not provided any expert evidence or facts to support their view the laws were disproportionate or unconstitutional.
The applicants, who had “no medical or scientific qualifications or expertise”, had “relied on their own unsubstantiated views, gave speeches, engaged in empty rhetoric and sought to draw parallels to Nazi Germany which is both absurd and offensive”.
The manner in which the Houses of the Oireachtas dealt with the laws, introduced by a caretaker government and voted on by an incoming Dáil and outgoing Seanad, was not something a court could interfere with, he said.
The laws are constitutionally permissible, he held.
The proceedings should have been brought via plenary hearing, involving hearing oral evidence, and not judicial review, he also held.
The hearing of the appeal continues.