Solicitor Ammi Burke has asked a High Court judge to recuse herself from hearing her challenge to the Workplace Relations Commission’s (WRC’s) rejection of her claim that she was unfairly dismissed by law firm Arthur Cox.
The application, made at the opening of her case against the WRC, asked Ms Justice Marguerite Bolger to recuse herself on a number of grounds, including that she has previously expressed views concerning the core issue in her proceedings and that she has a “particularly close relationship” with Arthur Cox’s senior counsel in the “tight-knit community” of employment law specialists.
The application will continue on Tuesday afternoon when the judge is expected to rule on the matter.
Ms Burke alleged Ms Justice Bolger and Arthur Cox’s barrister Peter Ward were founding members of the Employment Law Bar Association and have appeared on panels together.
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Ms Burke, from Cloonsunna, Castlebar, Co Mayo, further claimed the judge wrote, in a 2015 article published in the Irish Employment Law Journal, that the right to a fair hearing requires unfair dismissal proceedings of this nature to be “adversarial”.
This, Ms Burke said, “effectively decides the core issue in these proceedings”, as she, to the contrary, contends the procedure mandated under the 1977 Unfair Dismissal Acts is “inquisitorial” in nature.
It was also “extremely concerning”, Ms Burke said, that Ms Justice Bolger did not retract a statement, made at an earlier stage of the proceedings,...
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