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Max Barrett (judge)

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The Hon. Mr. Justice
Max Barrett
Judge of the High Court
Incumbent
Assumed office
8 January 2014
Nominated byGovernment of Ireland
Appointed byMichael D. Higgins
Personal details
Born1971 (age 52–53)
NationalityIrish
Alma mater

Max Barrett (born 1971) is an Irish judge who currently serves as a Judge of the High Court.

Barrett is a graduate in law from Trinity College Dublin as well as being the holder of a first-class honours MA in literature from Dublin City University and an accredited arbitrator.[1] He is also the holder of a PhD in law having won a full scholarship to the University of Salford in 1992.[2] Barrett trained as a solicitor with McCann FitzGerald, qualifying in 2001. He subsequently worked as a solicitor in Bailhache Labesse, Bank of Ireland and as Head of Legal in Rabobank. He became Head of Legal at Danske Bank Ireland in 2007.[1] Following the nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank in 2010, he was appointed company secretary,[3] a role he continued in its successor Irish Bank Resolution Corporation until 2012.[4] He was Head of Legal at SEB International Assurance until his appointment as a judge.[5]

Barrett has written several legal texts on financial law,[1] a series of case-law indices published by Blackstones and a book on the judicial functions of the House of Lords, published by Palgrave MacMillan and based on research which included interviews with members of the House,[6] as well as The Art and Craft of Judgment Writing: A Primer for Common Law Judges, published by Globe Law.[7]

Judicial career

Barrett was appointed to the High Court in January 2014.[8] He is one of the youngest judges to have been appointed in Ireland,[9] as well as being one of only three to have continued his studies to doctoral level.[10] He is also one of the most prolific, having delivered as many as 459 written judgments in under five years by early December 2020.[11] He has heard cases involving defamation law, judicial review, injunctions, the law of tort, company law, competition law and family law.[12][13][14][15][16][17] Barrett has been critical of high fees generated by legal professionals and argued that a systemic solution is needed to tackle the "crushing cost" of High Court litigation.[18]

As of 2021, he was the judge in charge of competition law matters in the High Court.[19]

Environmental cases

In the 2017 case of Merriman v. Friends of the Irish Environment, Barrett held that an unenumerated right to the environment exists in the Irish constitution, arising out of a case regarding extending planning permission for a runway at Dublin Airport.[20] The case has not been overruled. However, the now-retired Chief Justice Frank Clarke did note in a 2020 Supreme Court decision that such a right had not yet been established by the Supreme Court and argued it was of a "very vague nature".[21][22] The conservative approach taken by the Clarke Supreme Court contrasted markedly with the approach adopted by courts in many other jurisdictions, however, including the German Federal Constitutional Court, which has held national climate targets and permitted emissions to have violated fundamental rights.[23]

Migration cases

In A v. Minister for Justice and Equality (2019), Barrett set aside a decision of the Minister for Justice and Equality which refused an application for family reunification, on the basis that a section of the International Protection Act 2015 was unconstitutional. Section 56(9)(a) did not recognise marriages of refugees for family reunification purposes which took place after arriving in Ireland.[24] Although the case was concerned with a heterosexual marriage, it also impacted positively on LGBT+ couples who may not have been in a position to marry in countries of initial origin where same-sex marriage is not legal.[25]

Jones v Minister for Justice and Equality (2019) was the subject of some political focus.[26][27] Barrett refused to hold the Minister had been wrong in law to refuse the application for naturalisation of an Australian citizen who had been outside Ireland for 100 days prior to his application. The ruling held that the requirement in the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956 for one year's continuous residence for the period prior to an application must be given a literal reading, and concluded that there was no basis for the Department of Justice and Equality's discretionary policy of permitting six weeks absence from Ireland.[28]

The implied effect of the judgment anyone seeking Irish citizenship would become ineligible if they broke the chain of one year's continuous residence.[27] Researcher Conor O’Neill observed[29] however that exactly this approach had been intended by the Government of the 15th Dáil. Barrett expressly anticipated in his judgment that it was for the Oireachtas to amend the legislation.[26] The Court of Appeal subsequently dismissed an appeal from Barrett's ruling, noting that the trial judge had correctly concluded that the Minister's ‘finding’ was neither materially wrong nor irrational.[30] but also held by majority that the lower court ruling on the construction of the legislation requiring unbroken residence in Ireland had been "overly literal", and set the ruling aside in that one respect.[31][32] Because of the latter finding, any need for legislation (which the Minister had indicated would, if needed, be adopted "as an urgent priority") did not arise.[33]

In a 2016 case involving the relatives of the Easter Rising, he declared that Moore Street was a National Monument in 2016 in a 399-page judgment.[34] Though welcomed by campaigners and some politicians, the decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2018.[35] Fully four years after this ruling, Barrett wrote a letter to the editor of The Irish Times expressing his disappointment of what he felt was a lack of vision by the authorities for Moore Street.[36] The since-retired President of the High Court Peter Kelly was privately critical of this.[37][38]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Appointments to the High Court". Irish Government News Service. 18 December 2013. Archived from the original on 16 May 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  2. ^ Barrett, Max (2000). "A Tale of two Countries". Hibernian Law Journal. 1 (1): 23–44.
  3. ^ Barrett recused himself from a debt action in 2017 on the grounds of his previous employment with Anglo Irish Bank, and ordered that the case be reheard.Quinlan, Ronald (30 July 2017). "Judge's stint at Anglo leads to debt rehearing". Irish Independent. Archived from the original on 16 May 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  4. ^ "Ex-Anglo manager now High Court judge". Irish Independent. 18 December 2013. Archived from the original on 16 May 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  5. ^ O'Carroll, Sinead (17 December 2013). "Former Head of Legal at Danske Bank appointed to High Court". TheJournal.ie. Archived from the original on 16 May 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  6. ^ Barrett, Max (24 November 2000). The Law Lords : An Account of the Workings of Britain's Highest Judicial Body and the Men Who Preside Over it. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 9780333725191.
  7. ^ globelawandbusiness.com/books/the-art-and-craft-of-judgment-writing-a-primer-for-common-law-judges
  8. ^ "President Appoints Judges of the High Court". President.ie. Archived from the original on 16 May 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  9. ^ Bohan, Christine (8 January 2014). "Here are the three new judges appointed to the High Court today". TheJournal.ie. Archived from the original on 16 May 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  10. ^ The others are Gerard Hogan (now an Advocate General in the European Court of Justice) and Richard Humphreys.
  11. ^ "Courts Service website". Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  12. ^ "Judge criticises pace of defamation case". RTÉ News. 15 February 2017. Archived from the original on 17 September 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  13. ^ "Leaving Cert students expelled over social media video". RTÉ News. 14 December 2018. Archived from the original on 16 September 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  14. ^ "Greyhound wins injunction over plant blockade". RTÉ News. 17 June 2014. Archived from the original on 26 February 2021. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  15. ^ "Court rules ESB must pay 60% of UCC costs". RTÉ News. 4 December 2015. Archived from the original on 16 September 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  16. ^ "Liquidator confirmed to Co Meath construction and plant hire business". Irish Examiner. 20 April 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  17. ^ "Judge's one-page ruling criticised for being too brief by senior colleague". Irish Independent. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  18. ^ Phelan, Shane (11 August 2016). "High Court judge hits out at 'enormous' fees being charged by legal teams". Irish Independent. Archived from the original on 16 May 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  19. ^ "High Court - Assignment of Judges – Michaelmas Term 2021 | The Courts Service of Ireland". www.courts.ie. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
  20. ^ Merriman v Friends of the Irish Environment, [2017 IEHC 695] (High Court 21 November 2017).
  21. ^ Carolan, Mary (31 July 2020). "Supreme Court quashes Government's plan to reduce greenhouse gases". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 1 October 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  22. ^ Friends of the Irish Environment v. Government of Ireland, 2020 IESC 49 (Supreme Court of Ireland).
  23. ^ Eckes, Christina (10 May 2021). "Separation of Powers in Climate Cases: Comparing cases in Germany and the Netherlands". Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  24. ^ A v Minister for Justice and Equality, [2019 IEHC 547] (17 July 2019)..
  25. ^ See Holland, K., "Ruling marks an end to forced separation of couples" Archived 2019-07-18 at the Wayback Machine, Irish Times, 17 July 2019; retrieved 28 August 2019
  26. ^ a b Thomas, Cónal (18 July 2019). "Minister promises 'urgent action' after shock High Court ruling on citizenship applicants". TheJournal.ie. Archived from the original on 21 July 2019. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  27. ^ a b Phelan, Shane (17 July 2019). "Shock at court ruling on meaning of citizenship application law". Independent.ie. Archived from the original on 18 July 2019. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  28. ^ Jones v Minister for Justice and Equality, [2019 IEHC 519] (11 July 2019).
  29. ^ O'Neill, Conor. ""On the citizenship ruling"". twitter.com. Archived from the original on 28 September 2019. Retrieved 16 August 2019.
  30. ^ "Between / Roderick Jones and Minister for Justice and Equality". Ireland: The Court of Appeal. 14 November 2019. Archived from the original on 24 November 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  31. ^ Thomas, Cónal (14 November 2019). "'Unworkable' and 'unduly rigid' High Court finding on citizenship application overturned". TheJournal.ie. Archived from the original on 14 November 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  32. ^ "Appeal court overturns 'unbroken' residence ruling". RTÉ News. 14 November 2019. Archived from the original on 14 November 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  33. ^ O'Donnell, Orla (18 July 2019). "Minister: Citizenship ruling being dealt with urgently". RTÉ News. Archived from the original on 21 July 2019. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  34. ^ McDonald, Frank (22 March 2016). "Surprise Moore Street judgment leaves Government in a quandary". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  35. ^ Carolan, Mary (14 February 2018). "Court of Appeal rules Moore St buildings not 1916 national monument". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  36. ^ Barrett, Max (21 May 2020). "The fate of Moore Street". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 30 June 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  37. ^ McCarthy, Justine (16 August 2020). "High Court judge Max Barrett 'broke protocol' with letter about Dublin development he ruled on". Archived from the original on 14 September 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  38. ^ Scally, Derek (11 January 2020). "Irish judge joins Warsaw march over 'threat to independence' of judiciary-Mr Justice John MacMenamin among EU judges calling for protection of Polish peers". Archived from the original on 29 June 2021. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
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