Legal fees in bail challenge cases reached almost €30,000
The fees run as high as just under €30,000 in one case to just under €20,000 in another and involve court appearances of three to five hours by senior counsels, junior barristers, and solicitors. File picture
The legal fees earned by barristers and solicitors in bringing Article 40 habeas corpus applications for the release of clients, whose solicitors refused to represent them in District Court bail hearings, have been revealed in the High Court.
The legislation allows a court to examine the lawfulness of a person's detention.
The fees run as high as just under €30,000 in one case to just under €20,000 in another and involve court appearances of three to five hours by senior counsels, junior barristers, and solicitors.
The costs are multiplied where the same legal representatives appeared for separate clients but concentrated on only one chosen leading case with others being dealt with on a lesser evidential follow-on basis.
Most of the court hearings concentrated on legal argument and submissions.
In three applications before Mr Justice Garrett Simons over most of two days, Colman Fitzgerald. senior counsel, and Kevin McCrave, barrister, appeared in all three cases.
Michael O’Higgins, senior counsel, led in two cases with Orla Doolin, barrister, assisting him in one and Alexander Langan McDonnell assisting him in the second.
In one of Mr Fitzgerald’s cases, it was revealed he was due €3,000 for an ex parte brief fee; €2,750 for submissions; €7,500 for the hearing with another €3,000 as a refresher, totalling €16,250..
Junior counsel in this case, barrister Kevin McCrave, was stated to be due €1,750 for an ex parte brief fee; €1,450 for submissions; €5,100 for the hearing, and €1,750 refresher fee, totalling €10,565.
A refresher fee is charged where a hearing overruns allotted time. Stated costs for the solicitor in this case were totalled at between €16,000 to €19,000.
Similar legal costs applied in each of five cases heard by Judge Simons over the two days. Legal teams had, however, spent hours on research, extra to their time in court.
Mr Fitzgerald was the only barrister who, on instructions from his solicitor, openly detailed other legal expenses to the court.
He said his solicitor had told him that in all of his 27 years in practice, he had never had such a request made in Article 40 proceedings and it had, in his opinion, placed him in an invidious position insofar as it was almost impossible to present a proper bill of costs for work in progress.
Similar legal costs applied in each of five cases heard by Judge Simons over two days.
Mr O’Higgins told Judge Simons he had written a letter to his solicitor setting out fees that were paid in two recent cases and giving a bit of a thumbnail sketch and also contrasting them with the case before the court together with some assessments.
Judge Simons had initially directed that the court be provided with estimated legal costs in each case and had asked State authorities to provide comparison costs in District Court appearances and those applying to the High Court.
He had asked if someone could tell him what the Legal Aid Custody Scheme rates were.
Sunniva McDonagh, senior counsel, who had appeared for the DPP with barrister Kieran Kelly, told the court the DPP had a scale fee for bail applications and for habeas corpus, which she would be handing in.
The issue of legal costs had initially been raised by Mr Justice Michael Twomey in each of several cases in which he refused to open Article 40 inquiries into the alleged unlawful detention of accused, partly on the basis that any alleged unlawful detention had been brought about by the solicitors who had refused to represent their clients.
He said in the case of a man accused of possession of a handgun and ammunition that he had to decide whether Article 40 was the appropriate remedy in seeking bail where it had been refused or not applied for because of the absence of a solicitor.
Judge Twomey said a solicitor who had refused to represent a man on a Monday in the District Court, where fees would amount to hundreds of euros, had turned up the following day in the Article 40 application on his behalf in the High Court where fees could run into thousands.
He said solicitors were entitled to appear for or refuse to appear for accused.
Details of only two costs assessments were available to the media.
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