Ryanair asks judge not to hear action over apprehension of bias

RYANAIR has asked a High Court judge, Mr Justice Peter Kelly, not to hear an action by the airline on grounds of comments by the judge that Ryanair and the truth are “uncomfortable bedfellows”.

In a motion before him yesterday, Ryanair asked Mr Justice Kelly to discharge himself from determining a dispute involving the airline and a British-based firm, Terravision London Finance Ltd, which provides bus services from airports where Ryanair operates out of.

Ryanair claims Terravision is in breach of a contract the parties entered into. Terravision has denied the airline’s claims.

Ryanair has brought a pretrial motion on the grounds of a reasonable apprehension of bias due to the judge’s conduct and his beliefs expressed towards the airline in a separate case brought by the airline against the Commission for Aviation Regulation, where the judge described the truth and Ryanair as uncomfortable bedfellows.

In a judgment last June, Mr Justice Kelly refused Ryanair permission to bring a judicial review challenge to a determination by the commission to fix maximum charges for Dublin Airport from 2010-2014.

The judge said that “having had to consider Ryanair’s untruths to the court, its untruths about the court and its untruths about the then minister [for transport, Noel Dempsey], one has to conclude that the truth and Ryanair are uncomfortable bedfellows”.

He added that factual misstatements in affidavits put by Ryanair before the court in that case had “misled the court in a material way.” Chief executive Michael O’Leary had, in a letter to Mr Dempsey in February 2010, “seriously misrepresented” the position of the judge.

Yesterday Martin Hayden, counsel for Ryanair, said that the application is based on those comments that the judge made about his clients.

He said that in an affidavit to the court Mr O’Leary expresses his apprehension that the judge has expressed a conclusion that Ryanair, does not tell the truth. The judge’s belief, Mr O’Leary said, is not confined to particular persons within Ryanair or the particular issues that arose in the earlier case.

Counsel said that Ryanair’s chief operations officer Michael Cawley, who is a witness in the action involving Terravision, stated in his affidavit that he has an apprehension that any version of events he advances to the court would be influenced by Mr Justice Kelly’s conclusion that Ryanair and the truth are uncomfortable bedfellows.

In reply to the judge, Mr Hayden accepted that untruths had been told “to the court, about the court and about the minister,” in the earlier case. After that ruling, Mr O’Leary apologised to the court.

Counsel for Terravision Rossa Fanning said while the motion was not strictly one that involved his client, it was opposing the application.

Following the submissions, Mr Justice Peter Kelly reserved judgment on the matter.