State ordered to pay half Curtin's legal costs

CIRCUIT Court Judge Brian Curtin has been awarded substantial costs of his unsuccessful legal challenge to the procedures adopted by the Oireachtas which could lead to his removal from office.

Those costs are to be paid by the State, the Supreme Court ordered yesterday.

The seven-judge court ruled that Judge Curtin was entitled to half of the costs of the High Court hearing and also to half of the costs of the Supreme Court appeal because of the "novel but crucial constitutional questions" raised in "an uncharted constitutional terrain" in relation to how a judge may be removed from office.