A woman who was violently sexually and physically assaulted near a football pitch nearly five years ago has brought a High Court challenge over a refusal to include her in a scheme compensating victims of crime.
The woman immediately reported the assault, which occurred on November 7th, 2021, to the Garda Síochána, but she says it was not until this year that she learned of the Scheme for Personal Injuries Criminally Inflicted of 1986 and/or 2021.
She was out of time to make an application under the scheme, as it must be made within two years of the crime.
Judge Mary Rose Gearty on Monday granted leave to Conor Power, counsel for the woman, to bring judicial review proceedings seeking to quash a decision of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal of April 1st last to refuse her application.
The court application was made with only the woman’s side represented and adjourned to next month.
The proceedings are against the tribunal, the Minister for Justice, the Garda Commissioner, Ireland and the Attorney General.
The woman seeks declarations including that the tribunal erred insofar as it considered itself bound by the scheme so that it could not disapply it.
She also seeks a declaration that the scheme is invalid because the tribunal is not an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law. She wants a declaration that the respondents have failed adequately to transpose a 2004 EU directive relating to compensating crime victims and in failing to place the tribunal and/or the scheme on a statutory basis. She also seeks damages.
In her action, it is argued she is entitled to rely on the 2004 EU directive and that she has a legal right to compensation as the directive requires that member states shall provide for a compensation scheme.
It is further claimed that because the scheme is not on a statutory footing, it amounts to an administrative practice which can be changed at the whim of the executive.
Under a 2012 EU directive, member states are also required to ensure that victims are offered information about the compensation scheme, it is claimed.
It is argued that this right was transposed into Irish law under the 2017 Criminal Justice (Victims of Crime) Act and provides that gardaí or the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (Fiosrú), as the case may be, shall offer to the victim information on the compensation scheme.
The woman says she was not given any information by gardaí.
It is also alleged the tribunal fettered its discretion by its failure to consider extending the time for accepting the application. It is noted that the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme, which compensates victims of historical abuse, has a longer period for making an application and has an inbuilt discretion to extend the time for making an application.