Scales Of Injustice

They can't see what they did wrong. As far as each is concerned—Supreme Court Justice Hugh O'Flaherty, High Court Judge Cyril Kelly and Dublin County Registrar Michael Quinlan—they are innocent. Rather than fight to have their innocence established, each man has laid down his career for the sake of law and order in Ireland.

Philip Sheedy, the defendant they tried to help, argues in court that he has been wronged too. First, his lawyers told him that they had reached an understanding behind closed doors with Judge Kelly and he would get a suspended sentence, should he keep his mouth shut and plead guilty in open court. When Kelly backed off and gave the case to Judge Matthews, the lawyers came to another understanding behind closed doors with Matthews, told Sheedy to keep the mouth shut, plead guilty and accept a two-year prison sentence.

Matthews gave four years instead, which amounts to two years in practice with two years off for good behaviour. Lawyers told Sheedy to keep his mouth shut, go to jail and he'd be out even sooner because prisons are overcrowded and nice guys are released quickly to make room for guys deemed not to be nice.

Sheedy couldn't hack it inside, so his sister spoke to a friend who introduced her to his neighbour Judge O'Flaherty who advised that Sheedy accept the original review date given by Judge Matthews, which would mean that within a year of sentencing, he would return to court and ask for even more time off for good behaviour—he would effectively serve one year instead of four.

Behind closed doors, O'Flaherty helpfully mentioned the matter to court registrar Quinlan who helpfully arranged that Kelly hear the review and hey presto, in open court, Sheedy's case was reviewed in less than two minutes and he was set free.

The widower of Ann Ryan, the woman killed by Sheedy's out-of-control car, had a word with a guard in Tallaght about this, the guard asked questions, and all hell broke loose about deals done, not just behind closed doors, but in open court—the State was not present, as it had a right to be, when Kelly did the business. Kelly had not received a medical report that Sheedy couldn't hack jail, and Kelly had asked after the case was closed for such a report to be furnished—a retrospective alibi for the Judge, in effect.

The State brought Sheedy back to court, and Sheedy's lawyers advised him not to fight the State but go quietly back to jail and do his porridge, which he did.

Two resigned judges and one resigned registrar later, Sheedy was back in court again before Judge Matthews, with his lawyers pleading in open court that, what with one thing and another, Sheedy had been denied justice, because he was now doing more time than Matthews had originally intended him to do. The one thing and another amounted to the judiciary and lawyers cutting corners behind closed doors while Sheedy, keeping his mouth shut as advised, was shoved from their pillars to their posts. An interesting angle that, and fair enough—Sheedy was indeed denied justice, in that if the legal eagles in charge of his fate had practised law as it is meant to be practised, he would have done two years and been out by now. The State has gone so far as to suggest that deals done behind closed doors (known as plea-bargaining) is possibly unconstitutional.

At the time of writing, Sheedy's fate is uncertain. Meanwhile, the State, in another deal done behind closed doors, paid off O'Flaherty, Kelly and Quinlan, giving them early retirement and doubling the pensions—effective immediately—that they would have received had they done their time in the workforce like the rest of us. In short, the lump-sum golden handshake they would also have received down the line has been paid now in the form of a doubled pension. In popular parlance, they have been given a back-hander without answering the question that goes to the heart of the matter—how did these three guys arrange, between themselves, to have Sheedy sprung from jail?

We might never find the answer now, says the government which paid them off. For their part, the legal three will hardly give an answer voluntarily, since an answer might put their pay-offs at risk or even incriminate them. They continue to insist that they are innocent of any wrong-doing, that the individual parts they played in the affair were not co-ordinated, that they all met centre-stage entirely by accident. Such choreography you would not find in Riverdance itself, but that's the story of these three guys and they're sticking to it.

Maybe it's true. Their colleagues certainly think so. Not one judge, not one lawyer, has suggested that there was any collusion. The three of them were motivated, individually and without consulting each other, entirely by humanitarian considerations, and that humanitarianism brought them together centre stage, neither man knowing that the other was present in the Sheedy affair. The reason for their involvement—selective humanitarian sympathy for a member of the middle class—is entirely believable, so the question is not why they became involved but how it happened that all three became collectively involved.

What is to be done? John Bruton suggests that no pension should be paid to Cyril Kelly until he answers the question. But why stop with Kelly? Why not withhold pensions from the other two until they also answer the question—how did it come about that they all became involved, each one with the same objective—the release of Philip Sheedy?

With friends like those three, Sheedy might profitably ask, who needs enemies? And who needs lawyers who advise gambling with the judiciary behind closed doors? The Four Courts are not a safe place to be these days.