rowa wrote: »

Going back in ancient history a bit , when the doj or whoever agreed to release .22 rimfire and air pistols on a limited basis back in the early 90's , who negotiated that release on the shooters side and why was it refused by them ?

The NRPAI as I understand it (the tale was related to me by one of those involved, with much gusto on their part), and the reasoning for the rejection was that they wanted to take the all-or-nothing approach to get centerfire rifles and pistols back.

Just asking , because if things had been handled differently the centrefires could have been released by an agreement.

Yup. Air and smallbore pistols come back, we re-establish the pistol shooting scene, and then with those available and active, we go back to the next Minister in a year or two and lobby for the centerfires back up to X calibre, re-establish those, then go back again to the next Minister and lobby for the next batch. Along the way, the AGS get used to the idea and stop seeing us as an unknown armed quantity; the public get used to the idea as well; we build up the clubs system again; and because it was an agreement with the Minister, he's not free in the Dail to say it's all due to a court case and he wants to ban them all.

Frank Brophy's case was a major boon to us, yes; the point is that he never would have had to go to court, take on all that risk and stress, and we wouldn't have been dependent on so much luck for a positive outcome (if people think the row that was going on then between the Minister and the AGS had no part to play in things, they weren't paying attention at the time); if we'd just been pragmatic and realistic and accepted the deal and worked in small incremental steps; instead of favouring the doomed grand romantic gesture and the tilting at windmills that for some reason, we keep on deliberately choosing.

We really need to drop that habit, and start remembering that our sport is unique in that it lasts for our entire lives. Shooters can shoot right up past their 90s if they're in good health; this isn't GAA where if you are still playing pass 30, you're in a tiny minority. If we're going to be shooting for sixty-odd years each, we not only can afford to take the long view, we need to take the long view.

hk wrote: »

Actually, the high court was the only place this particular point could have been made. The point being that the GS had implemented a blanket ban policy on CF pistols. Such a blanket ban would be contrary to law and would be unfair, therefore a JR was taken to prove the existence of such a policy and have the decisions over turned. The district court does not set precedence and would have been looking at the merits of the decision. It is extremely difficult to to prove a national blanket ban when confined to dealing with an individual case.

That's simply not correct. Yes, it's hard to prove that a blanket ban is going on; but it's every bit as hard in the high court as it is in the district court. Yes, the district court doesn't set legal precedents in the same way as the high court; but no legal precedent has been set here anyway so it's a moot point. And most of all, if you didn't enjoin the Minister or at least the Commissioner in any HC action, you couldn't have gotten policy change from a settlement because a settlement with a CS can't require policy change from a Minister unless the Minister is a party to the settlement. You can say "oh, if we'd won, we'd wave the HC judgement and precedent at the Minister", but he'd say it was an operational matter and he has no role in licence applications, as he and his predecessors have for the past 30 years and it would have no effect. And if you'd proven a blanket ban in the DC, you could cite it in every other DC case; just because it's a court of summary judgement that normally doesn't do transcripts does not mean it's some sort of wild west kangaroo court where you can't cite other outcomes and all decisions are shredded as soon as the case ends.

So basicly, there wasn't any advantage gained by ignoring the DC route and going straight to the High Court. It just cost more time, more money, did more damage to us and entailed more risk.

There are people here, like myself who do have a greater knowledge of what has gone on and is going on.

Funny, because so far we've had two people say they were part of the 168 and had no knowledge of what was going on, and two say they knew everything that was going on.

Which to me, seems rather odd.

As it stands the High Court orders have not yet been issued or served, furthermore those effected still have to go through a rerun of the system, including the possibility of having to go back to court to present the evidence which was not presented before the GS threw in the towel.
I will be quite happy to let the rest of the shooting community know the detail of what happened and why, after my situation has been resolved. While boards might deem it ok to discuss this case again, its not the final conclusion for anyone involved in the process.

Boards does not "deem it ok", it's a legal decision based on last year's finding of Technical Contempt against several newspapers for discussing a sub judice case. As far as the lawyers are concerned, the 168 cases are now over and discussion can continue. It's not boards.ie's decision, it's the decision of their legal team.

And as to the "we know and we'll tell you in good time" line, that's just as repugnant as the "hush now, we know better line" because it's the same thing.

Frankly, I don't believe you do know, going from what you've said, what's in the public domain, and how courts actually work. I think you've been told something and either that something was incorrect, or you misheard or misunderstood it. And that's not the same thing as knowing what's going on.

And you are correct, this entire episode is far from over; and until we see how all 168 licence applicants do in their reapplication and how well they do three years from then, we won't know how things ended. But we do know what's been given up so far, and frankly, I don't think that the benefit has justified the loss so far, and I think blind luck has played a central role in us not losing even more.

hk wrote: »

there is no obligation on those involved to disclose the details of a legal strategy that they are paying for.

That's a given. This, however, is out of bounds:

SVI40 wrote: »

stop speculating on matters which you appear to have no knowledge of

And there's also the point that those paying for the court cases are in fact taking action which could have very negative effects on all 200,000 or so of us. If less than 1% of the shooting community do something which has serious negative effects for the other 99%, is it right to expect that those 99% have no questions, express no concerns, and back those actions fully without hesitation?

It doesn't seem that way to me.

I generally agree that pushing too far is counterproductive, however the suggestion that CF pistol owners should roll over and hope that in a few years through negotiation you will get them back is ridiculous.

Nobody was asking anyone to roll over. CF pistol owners were asked long before problems arose to slow down, to get established, to give the AGS and public time to get used to their presence before starting off the less boring-looking disciplines. In other words, keep the pistols they had, let more people get those pistols, and in the meantime just shoot boring old bullseye targets on a range (you know, like NRA Bullseye, the single largest centerfire pistol shooting discipline in the US?)

The response from one CF pistol owner expressed the seed of the problems to come quite succinctly - "Well, if something happens, I'll have had a few years of fun anyway". The inevitable happened, a TD saw a chance to make noise, get on the news and hunt for votes, the Minister got a whack as a result; and crap did what crap does and flowed downhill and landed on the CF pistol shooters.

So when you say they were asked to roll over, you're omitting the several years that led up to the problem, which was an avoidable one, but which was ignored until it bit people. At that point, the only way back was going to take time and require negotiation.

And for those not paying attention, it will still require time and negotiation to fix because even if those 168 cases got everything that it's claimed they got -- something I don't accept and which is not accepted by several people who've been working in this area for a decade or more -- all it would mean is that 168 people have the licences they started out with.

Or, more directly, Nobody can licence a new centerfire pistol, even after all of this effort.

In order for that to happen, in order for centerfire pistol to be given a new lease on life as a sporting discipline rather than watch it die out as people leave the sport or pistols succumb to wear and tear over the next few years, people will have to sit down with the Minister via the DoJ to get the restricted SI altered; and the mechanism for that was the FCP. But the FCP was burned by the NARGC in order to take these cases.

What it boils down to then, as far as I can see, is that these cases are just people saying I'm alright Jack, pull the ladder up.

Slug chucker wrote: »

How do you fight it effectively when the reason for refusal given is spurious?

Slug chucker, that task does not get easier with a change of venue. It's as hard in the High Court as it is in the District Court. So why prejudice your chances by trying to take short cuts?

When some DC judges in some districts have said (and yes this has happened.. ) they will not go against the CS decision?
When the very first case that was taken to DC was lost leaving the individual no option but to go to High Court out of his own pocket.

And that's completely spurious. If you go to DC and the judge says he won't entertain arguments, then you appeal; that's the whole point of a Judicial Review process in the first place. But you don't sidestep the entire DC route, that makes no damn sense at all.

And if you lose in the District Court, you won't be out of pocket by anywhere near the amount the High Court will cost anyway, and moreover, you'll be able to tell the High Court that you undertook all available options before seeking redress in the High Court, as opposed to the other side saying you're just wasting the court's time, that this could have been settled in a district court and that the Act explicitly provides for that, but you didn't bother.

You saw that comment above in the Supreme Court McVeigh case, where the Justice said that the communication between the parties was like a dialogue of the deaf? That's the kind of response you'd be getting from the High Court if you skip defined mechanisms of appeal.

And given all the above if you fail in district court you are left with either taking the judge to Judicial review out of your own pocket as the latter or trying to reapply again (if they will accept it at all without a court order saying so) and get refused again and try again and again or walk away?

SC, are you saying that if you went to the DC and then appealed to the HC, the costs would have come from your own pocket, but if you went straight to the HC, they wouldn't have?

Because if so, that's interesting; and if not, well, what's the difference so in doing things properly? If you go to the High Court and you lose, you'll need a five to six figure sum to pay the costs. If you go to the District Court and lose, it'll be a three figure sum. And if you go to the District Court and lose, you have the option to then appeal to a higher court anyway, in exactly the same kind of case you would have been taking if you'd gone there directly.

It makes little sense to me to try to save around 1-2% of the cost of a High Court case by going directly to the High Court, thereby prejudicing your case (because you're avoiding the defined appeals mechanism and taking up the time of a higher court), and risking far more of a financial loss and a legal slapping for yourself and all of the rest of us as well.

Incidentally, that appeal will have set a precedent. So future cases will be have to take it into consideration.

Half-cocked wrote: »

Where in the news is this story, can anyone post a link?

It was word of mouth half-cocked, I've not seen it reported on yet; I've heard since from another source that it was the DC appeals themselves and not the JRs in the high court that the costs appeal was about; so the per-case cost would be far far lower than the HC costs.

knockon wrote: »

Are you saying DC appeals costs are not effected?

No, I'm saying that this will affect these cases (or at least some of them) and future cases.

Sweetdragon wrote: »

Can you elaborate on the above please?

I mean that some of these cases (possibly all, but the details aren't public) won't have their costs paid for by the state (the portion of their costs that wasn't covered by the section 68 letter, that is) but will have to be borne by either the NARGC or the original person taking the case (I don't know which, that would depend on various agreements that aren't in the public domain); and that ruling could be cited in future cases where a DC appeal is taken on a licencing decision and won; meaning that winning your case in a DC appeal is not a guarantee that your costs will also be awarded (which seems to have been assumed in the past).