High Court dismisses vexatious litigation claim against Courts Service for abuse of process.

APPROVED 2025 IEHC 484

THE HIGH COURT

RECORD NUMBER 2022 1306 P

BETWEEN

PETER NOWAK

Plaintiff

AND

THE COURTS SERVICE OF IRELAND

Respondent

JUDGMENT of Mr Justice Nolan delivered on the 29th day of July, 2025

Introduction

1. There are two motions before the court, the first to amend the Plaintiff's statement of claim while the second, but first in time, is the Defendant’s motion to dismiss the proceedings on the grounds that they are frivolous and vexatious, pursuant to the court's inherent jurisdiction and O.19, r. 28 of the Rules of the Superior Courts (“the Rules”). The Defendant also seeks an Isacc Wunder order against the Plaintiff in circumstances where he has issued multiple proceedings involving the same or similar issues.

Background

2. The Plaintiff is a Polish national who lives in Warsaw but in the past resided in Ireland. He says that he was a former student of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and was employed by PwC from October 2006 to August of 2009. He says that his training contract was terminated due to a failure to pass his CIP 2 Strategic Finance and Management Accounting exams in 2009. He instituted proceedings against PwC under the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1997 to 2005 and on the 12th of October of 2015, he says the Tribunal determined that he had been unfairly dismissed and awarded him the sum of €7,500.

3. He appealed to the Circuit Court and on the 17th of October 2016, he had a marvellous victory and was awarded the sum of €32,500. However, he was dissatisfied that the court did not award him more, so he sought to appeal to the High Court. He says that a notice of appeal was filed on the 26th of October 2016 and that the matter was fixed for hearing for the 30th of May 2017. He alleges that PwC then filed a motion to strike out his appeal under O.19, r. 28 of the Rules.

4. He alleges that the Central Office of the High Court, which is an office of the Defendant, in breach of the court rules, processed PwC's motion under his record number relating to what he calls “his statutory appeal.” He says that it had no right or legal basis to issue such a motion and more particularly, as far as this Defendant was concerned, the Central Office had no right to process it. He expressed his disagreement in relation to the PwC motion and informed the Central Office he would not be present at the hearing.

5. Ultimately the matter was heard on the 24th of February 2017 in his absence and the High Court ordered the appeal to be struck out (Noonan J.).

6. He concedes that he did not appeal this order because it was the result of the unlawful application and he quotes s. 39 of the Courts of Justice Act 1936 (as amended), that a

decision of the High Court on appeal from Circuit Court is final conclusive and not appealable.

5. On the 1st of June 2017, some four months later he accessed the court file and says that he discovered that his original notice appeal was not on the file but that the PwC's motion was there instead.

6. He then issued a number of complaints to the Data Protection Commission, who dismissed them. He appealed to the Circuit Court, pursuant to s. 26 of the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003, but the appeals were dismissed. He filed an appeal, on a point of law, to the High Court, but he alleges the appeal was blocked by the Central Office.

7. He decided to issue judicial review proceedings, which were heard by O'Donnell J., and I gratefully take the rest of the narrative from his decision of the 20th of March 2024: -

“4. The legal issues raised by Mr. Nowak arise in connection with his attempts to institute appeals on a point of law to the High Court against certain orders made in the Dublin Circuit Court pursuant to s. 26 of the 1988 Act. In turn, the matters in the Circuit Court involved appeals against decisions made by the Data Protection Commissioner. From the papers, the Circuit Court dismissed four separate appeals brought by Mr. Nowak against the Data Protection Commissioner, with each involving different groups of notice parties. The Circuit Court orders were made on the 23 November 2021, and Mr. Nowak had 10 days to lodge an appeal to this court.

Following the decisions in the Circuit Court, Mr. Nowak, who, at the time, was based outside the jurisdiction, prepared notices of appeal in each case and transmitted the notices by registered post to the Central Office of the High Court. The notices of appeal were received by the Central Office of the High Court on the 2 December 2021, one day before the time period expired. The appeals were processed the same day, and the respondent identified that they were not in the correct format and had not used the correct title. Mr. Nowak had not provided any contact information other than his postal address, so the respondent wrote to him explaining that they considered the forms to be incomplete, and that if he required an extension of time, he could use a template form attached to the rejection note.

I should note that, at the hearing, the respondent contended that while Mr. Nowak chose to post his forms, rather than attending the Central Office, he could have appointed an agent to attend on his behalf. Had this been done, the deficiencies in the forms would have been addressed in person and any necessary amendment made there and then. A further point was made that if Mr. Nowak had engaged constructively with the respondent, it would have been possible to regularise the notices and he would have been in a position to make the necessary application to extend time for his appeals. I consider that these propositions are well made. If Mr.

Nowak had taken the course suggested to him instead of erroneously insisting that his position was correct, these proceedings, with the associated costs for the respondent and the use of scarce court time, would have been avoided. On the 6 December 2021, Mr. Nowak communicated with the respondent, saying, in effect, that their refusal of the forms was not satisfactory to him. Mr. Nowak emailed again on the 7 December 2021. The respondent then emailed Mr. Nowak, advising him of the correct template form to use and provided him with a copy of same. There were subsequent email exchanges between the parties with Mr. Nowak insisting that the notices of appeal should be accepted.

Mr. Nowak then proceeded to seek to commence this application for judicial review.

There is some confusion about the precise timeline in this regard. The statement to ground the application for judicial review is dated 29 December 2001 and Mr.

Nowak’s grounding affidavit is dated 13 January 2022. In an order of this court (Meenan J.) dated 24 October 2022, it is noted that Mr. Nowak first made an ex parte application on the 16 May 2022. The matter was then adjourned to the 24 October 2022, when Meenan J. directed that the papers be served on the respondent so that they would be on notice of the application for leave to apply for judicial review. As is apparent from a further order of Meenan J. on the 20 December 2022, Mr. Nowak had not served the papers (or served them properly) by that stage, so a further order was made on a peremptory basis requiring Mr. Nowak to file and serve a notice of motion returnable to the 13 January 2023.

By motion dated 11 January 2023, the applicant set out the orders for which leave was sought. The first relief sought was an order “of mandamus directing the Central Office of the High Court to process Appeals against the Circuit Court Orders bearing the record numbers of 2020/712, 2019/8026 and 2019/6940 within a week from the date of the Order”. The applicant also sought a declaration that Order 61 of the RSC does not 4 apply, in whole or in part, to the appeals pursuant to s. 26 of the Data Protection Act, 1988 and an order that his Notices of Appeal against the Circuit Court orders were “valid and safe to process.”

8. O'Donnell J. dismissed the proceedings on the basis that the proceedings were out of time, by a substantial margin, and he had not explained the delay or sought an extension of time. He also noted that if the court was incorrect in that assessment he was satisfied that the substantive points raised by the Plaintiff were incorrect.

9. Not surprisingly, given that Mr Nowak has already issued multiple sets of proceedings relating, in some shape or form, to the same or similar issues, he appealed to the Court of Appeal. That court too, dismissed the proceedings on the basis of O.84, r. 21(3) of the Rules, in that there must be an application for extension of time, the extension of time must be grounded upon an affidavit, which sets out the reasons for the Applicant’s failure to make the application within the prescribed time and verifying any facts relied on to support those reasons. None of that had occurred.

10. In addition, the court pointed out that it can only extend the period if it is satisfied there is good and sufficient reason for doing so and that the circumstances that resulted in the failure were outside the control of or could not reasonably have been anticipated by the applicant.

11. It is in those circumstances the matter comes before this court.

The Proceedings

12. On the 4th of April 2022 the Plaintiff issued a Plenary Summons seeking damages for negligence and bad faith, fraud, breach of duty, breach of data protection rules and a declaration that a notice of motion in another case was invalid and had no legal effect. That was followed up by a Statement of Claim setting out the background that I have set out above. An objection and a Defence was filed.

13. In the context of the case, I think it is appropriate that I should refer to its pertinent parts. At the outset it pleads that the proceedings disclose no reasonable cause of action, are frivolous and vexatious and comprise an abuse of process and are bound to fail and therefore should be dismissed, pursuant to the inherent jurisdiction of the court or alternatively under O.19 r 27 of the Rules.

14. It admits that the Central Office was unable to process his notices of appeal relating to his four data complaints, since they were not in the correct format and did not have the correct title. Since the Plaintiff had only provided a postal address and resided in Poland, the Defendant wrote to him. He was told that his forms were incomplete and could not be processed and he was appraised of the option to seek an extension of time within which to appeal.

15. Following an exchange of correspondence by e-mail, a correct template was provided to him. However, he continued to insist that his notice of appeal, as presented, should be accepted. At that point he instituted his judicial review proceedings.

16. The defence pleads that his proceedings include allegations of deliberate acts of criminality and/or fraud and mala fides. It pleads that these allegations are made without any foundation and bound to fail and are frivolous and vexatious and the making of such allegations in this way, comprises an abuse of process.

The Motion to Amend

17. The Plaintiff says that he wishes to transfer most of the reliefs sought in the judicial review proceedings, which he says he is pursuing “in the public interest, to clarify the application of the Rules.” He criticises the Court of Appeal for not addressing the declaratory reliefs, the substantial reliefs and the points of law raised. Thus, he wants to do so in these proceedings. In particular he now wishes to add to his Statement of Claim a claim for €2 million for negligence, bad faith, breach of duty and breach of data protection obligations.

18. He also seeks a declaration that the notice of motion to strike out the statutory appeal filed by PwC, in the PwC proceedings, is invalid and of no legal effect, that a notice of appeal, lodged in the same case is not a pleading within the meaning of the term as set out in the Rules, a declaration that the Defendant breached his data protection rights and acted in bad faith, a declaration that O.61 of the Rules does not apply to appeals pursuant to s. 26 of the Data Protection Act 1988 to 2003 and a declaration that the Defendant is not entitled to refuse to process his notices of appeals from the Circuit Court which are valid and safe to be processed.

19. Finally, he seeks a declaration that he is not liable to pay legal costs arising from the judicial review proceedings or indeed from any of the other matters. He says that the amendments arise out of substantially the same facts as pleaded in the Statement of Claim.

Decision on the Motion to Amend

20. One of the main considerations which the court has to consider in relation to a motion to dismiss is whether the action can be saved by permitting amendments. The was discussed in detail by Ryan J. in Dormer v. Allied Irish Bank Plc [2017] IECA 199, stating: -

“The courts generally adopt a generous approach to applications for amendment, following a policy that it is proper and indeed necessary to have all the relevant issues in dispute between the parties brought before the court. In this respect, it seems to me that the rule in Henderson v. Henderson actually supports the Dormers' motion to amend. It would be practically a Catch-22 situation if they were to be defeated on a basis that they had not brought forward their whole case while being denied the means of doing just that. It is not satisfactory to have a claim defeated on a rule of technical pleading. It is also the case that the courts are sympathetic to amendment in circumstances where it will save the proceedings from premature elimination.”

21. In this case the Plaintiff says that the issues that he wishes to litigate are the issues which were at the core of the judicial review proceedings he brought but lost. He complains about the Court of Appeal did not deal with the substantive core issues.

22. Indeed, this view was echoed in the determination of the Supreme Court in this case (2025 IESCDET 56), where it said at para. 35, that the Court of Appeal: -

“was correct that it was unnecessary to consider the grounds of the substantive appeal and that no error arose from the courts dismissing the appeal in lieu of converting the matter into a plenary hearing. The use of the inherent jurisdiction of the court in this manner did not deprive the applicant of his right to a fair trial.”

23. While I have been urged not to permit the amendments, it seems to me that a failure to permit them would simply be another ground of appeal which the Plaintiff would bring, if the matter were to be determined against him. Therefore, it seems to me, that since he issued this motion, following the motion to dismiss, that he must have had that motion in his contemplation when he brought this motion.

23. In those circumstances I permitted him to amend his proceedings as set out. I waived the obligation for them to be underlined in red, given that they had already been furnished to the Defendant. Therefore, the motion to dismiss the proceedings is based upon the amended proceedings and not the original proceedings issued and served. I am satisfied that the Defendant is not at a disadvantage in that the new matters in the amended proceedings are matters which are easily addressed. The Motion to Dismiss

24. As it set out in its defence the Defendant has brought its motion to dismiss the proceedings. The grounding affidavit of Ms. Duffy, the Registrar of the Central Office, avers to the facts as set out above. She refers to the other proceedings which the Plaintiff has instituted including the proceedings against PwC, the Data Protection Commissioner, as well as the judicial review proceedings against the Defendant. She notes that at the time that the PwC motion was issued, the Plaintiff wrote complaining about the matter but simply decided that he would not turn up. This was a conscious decision on his part and nothing to do with the Courts Service.

25. Ms. Duffy says that there is no evidence whatsoever of any fraudulent or wilful behaviour by any member of the Central Office.

26. She says that it seems clear that the Plaintiff’s real purpose in bringing these proceedings, is to litigate matters which he has pursued in another forum or in other proceedings. It is for that reason that the Defendant seeks orders prohibiting him from issuing any further proceedings without leave of court (an Isaac Wunder order), since he has now instituted 19 sets of proceedings. This is particularly the case since given its public character and its important role in the administration of justice, the Defendant and its staff cannot opt out of dealing with him.

27. In response Mr Nowak says the proceedings are not based upon spurious allegations but on facts of wrongdoing of the Defendants, without in any way setting out what those facts might be. He says he has no intention of instituting abusive proceedings but seeks a remedy and justice. He repeats that PwC, as the only respondent in the PwC proceedings, was not entitled to issue a motion and reiterates that he had sent letters saying that he would not participate in what he describes as “criminal proceedings.” He points to the fact that the Legal Diary in May of 2017 showed his case to be still alive. He says the matter would not have been before a judge had not been unlawfully processed by the Central Office.

The Legal Principles in regard to Striking Out Proceedings

28. The law relating to the legal principles permitting the court to strike out proceedings is well settled, and I do not intend to repeat it in any great detail. It can be done under the inherent jurisdiction of the court or O.19, r.28 of the Rules. It is a jurisdiction which should be used sparingly and only in the clearest of cases. It is not there to prevent hardship to a Defendant from defending a case but simply to prevent an abuse of process. The onus is at all times, on the Defendant. The court should be cognisant of the fact that the threshold for a Plaintiff to successfully defend such a motion is not a prima facia case but a statable case. (see Scotchstone Capital Fund Limited v. Ireland [2022] IECA 23, Lopes v. Minister for Justice and Equality [2014] 2 IR 301).

29. In Duffy v. Permanent TSB [2021] IEHC 511, Twomey J. expressed the view at para. 47, of his judgment, that the Plaintiff’s claims were “frivolous and vexatious insofar as they encompass a wide-range of very serious allegations against the defendants that are completely unsubstantiated by any of the documentary evidence.” He concluded that the Plaintiff had not established that he had any reasonable cause of action and that it was clear that the proceedings were bound to fail. In the circumstances of this case that seems to be a very pertinent observation.

Discussion and Decision

20. The written submissions of the parties followed similar lines to the affidavits. Mr Nowak appeared by video link, while Mr Cole S.C. for the Defendant, appeared in court. I make this point since in the course of what was, a relatively robust interaction with Mr Nowak, he accused me of smiling and of being on overly familiar terms with counsel in court. The fact that he was not in court in person certainly made the hearing more difficult, particularly in circumstances where he made outrageous and unfounded personal allegations.

The First Issue

31. In the first of three points raised by Mr. Cole for the defendant he refers to what he describes as the Plaintiff’s interaction with the Central Office in relation to his Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) cases. In discussion with the court, the Plaintiff believes that the Circuit Court did not engage with, what he described as his training contract and therefore he was entitled to his full two years of salary of €64,000 approximately.

32. Mr Cole says that the Plaintiff alleges that the Central Office unlawfully interfered with the file by somehow intermeddling with it, inserting the PwC notice of appeal and removing his. He decided not to turn up for the hearing because of what he described as it being an “unlawful and fraudulent motion to strike out.” In his discussions with the court Mr Nowak doubled down on this allegation saying that he had no intention in participating in an unlawful and illegal set of proceedings, a refrain which became familiar in this case.

33. Mr Cole says that the Central Office does not have the power or the authority to interfere with the file. However, he points to the affidavit of Ms. Duffy which exhibits the Notice of Appeal of the 26th of October 2016. Indeed, the notice is date stamped with that date and the computer printout clearly shows it. While there is a date relating to another document of the 28th of October, which is unknown, the reality is the Notice of Appeal was not interfered with. Just because the Plaintiff could not find it when he examined the file, does not change the fact that it is there and exhibited.

34. In response Mr Nowak accuses the Central Office of subterfuge by removing his Notice of Appeal and replacing it with the PwC one. He says that this is patently clear from the computer printout. He also questions how it was that the PwC Notice of Appeal was accepted in circumstances where he describes this as a statutory appeal and that the motion should not have been accepted.

Decision on the First Issue

35. On this issue I am satisfied that the Plaintiff does not have any case. The independence of the Central Office is clear from the fact that they accepted his Notice of Appeal as well as that of PwC. There is nothing mysterious, controversial or suspicious about the fact that his appeal got a date of the 17th of May, and the PwC appeal was two months earlier.

36. The reality is that the Central Office lists cases in the most effective way it can. If one case looks, on the face of it, to be longer than another, it may well get a sooner date. Further I am satisfied that his Notice of Appeal does appear in the computer system. It was not surreptitiously removed or hidden. It is exhibited in Ms. Duffy’s affidavit, as is the relevant printout showing it.

37. Finally, I am satisfied that the inherent jurisdiction of the court to strike out matters comes into play. It is not for this court to challenge the decision of a judge of equal standing (Noonan J.), in his application of the law when he struck out the matter in February 2017.

38. Of course, all of this could easily have been avoided had Mr Nowak decided to turn up in court and argue what he argued to this court. However, for reasons, which are not properly explained, he alleges the hearing was fraudulent or illegal, which it clearly was not.

39. All of this was some nine years ago. Nonetheless notwithstanding his attempt to litigate these matters, there is no case in law, as against the Central Office. He seems to allege some form of implied or explicit fraud, but here is no evidence of any fraud. Indeed, if anything there is evidence of independence and a balanced approach of the staff of the Central Office.

40. Therefore, I am satisfied that this issue discloses no cause of action and is bound to fail. It is clearly an abuse of process and while the term “frivolous and vexatious” is not meant necessarily to be literal in most cases, in this case it is very apt. As Twomey J. said in Duffy, very wide-ranging allegations have been made which are completely unsubstantiated by any evidence.

The Second Issue

41. The next issue relates to his appeals against the decision of the Circuit Court relating to his complaints to the Data Appeals Commissioner. Here the highhandedness of Mr Nowak comes to the fore. Not only did the Central Office staff attempt to assist him by showing him the correct template which they would accept, but he roundly criticised them for so doing.

42. In this court he said that by utilising the template offered, he could not articulate the issues which he wished to articulate. Nothing of course would have stopped him from utilising the template and then articulating the issues in court. He chose not to do that. As a result, he lost the ability to be able to appeal those decisions. Further this matter was front and centre of his judicial review proceedings. On this very issue O’Donnell J. said as follows at para.6 :-

“A further point was made that if Mr. Nowak had engaged constructively with the respondent, it would have been possible to regularise the notices and he would have been in a position to make the necessary application to extend time for his appeals. I consider that these propositions are well made. If Mr. Nowak had taken the course suggested to him instead of erroneously insisting that his position was correct, these proceedings, with the associated costs for the respondent and the use of scarce court time, would have been avoided.”

43. I wholeheartedly agree.

44. It is noteworthy that one of the issues that he sought to complain to the Data Protection Commissioner about was the alleged interference by the Central Office of his court file, thereby reiterating his first complaint.

Decision on the Second Issue

45. I am satisfied that on the facts as set out in the affidavits, there is no case in law which can be made relating to this issue. He was given the opportunity to mend his hand, and he refused it. On the facts I can see no issue of controversy. On the law I can see no case, nor has any been opened to me, which will come to his aid. While he did refer to Dublin Bus v. Data Protection Commissioners [2012] IEHC 339, that matter was comprehensively dealt with by O'Donnell J. at para. 23 of his judgment.

46. In those circumstances, it is clear that what the Plaintiff is attempting, by way of plenary proceedings, is to relitigate the issues which he attempted to litigate in the judicial review proceedings. In point of fact, he makes no secret of this in his grounding affidavit to amend his proceedings. Therefore, on those two grounds I find that there is no case to be made and therefore this issue discloses no cause of action and is bound to fail.

The Third Issue

47. The last issue relates to the amended proceedings and his judicial review. As I noted above, he openly admits that by amending the proceedings he is attempting to relitigate the matters which have been dealt with in the High Court, the Court of Appeal and by determination, the Supreme Court. Mr Cole says that he is attempting to impermissibly collaterally attack the judgment of the High Court. O'Donnell J. considered the matters and found that he was out of time but also dealt with the substantive complaints which now form part of these proceedings and found that they had no merit.

48. While Mr Nowak complains that the Court of Appeal did not deal with the substantive matter, he does not support that with any legal submission other than saying that they were emphatically wrong. Mr Cole says that this is trying to pursue a parallel track, and I agree. Further if he had difficulty with the Court of Appeal not determining the substantive issue because, that might in some way affect these proceedings, he could have articulated that before the Court of Appeal, but he chose not to.

49. I am satisfied that this is a collateral attack upon the decision of O'Donnell J. in the judicial review proceedings. I am satisfied that this is impermissible. Mr Nowak has gone to every court in the land, but has failed. In relation to each decision, he is witheringly dismissive.

50. I am satisfied on the basis of the amended proceedings that this is a collateral attack which is impermissible and therefore bound to fail and is an abuse of process. If I am incorrect in that regard, I am satisfied that there is no evidence to support the allegations and that they are frivolous and vexatious. On that ground alone, I find that there is no case to answer on this issue.

The Incident in Court

50. There were three maters which I wished Mr Cole to reply to, based upon Mr Nowak’s submissions. These related to the dates of the two appeals, the order of Noonan J. and the allegation that his notice of appeal does not appear on the computer printout. While Mr Cole was replying, Mr Nowak aggressively intervened. When I tried to calm him, not for the first time he got extremely irate and indeed, sadly personally abusive. As it was approaching lunchtime, I said that I would rise and take the matter up at 2:15.

51. On the resumption of the case Mr Nowak decided not to reappear. At 2:40 he sent an e-mail to the court and to the Defendant’s solicitor stating that he would not participate any further in a “kangaroo court.” That is a pity because I told him that I would be considering the Isaac Wunder application in the afternoon.

Further Considerations

52. There are a number of further matters which the court has to take into consideration, bearing in mind the case law. In this case the Plaintiff is seeking orders in relation to other cases with other parties, who are not parties to this case. For example, he seeks a declaration that PwC’s motion to strike out his appeal in the PwC proceedings is invalid, as well as other reliefs in those proceedings.

53. He seeks a declaration that the Defendant breached his data protection rights and acted in bad faith, the issue which was to the fore in the judicial review proceedings and was dealt with by O’Donnell J.

54. He seeks a declaration that O.61 of the Rules does not apply to appeals pursuant to s.26 of the Data Protection Act 1988 to 2003 and further declarations, again matters which the judicial review proceedings dealt with.

55. Finally, he seeks a declaration that he is not liable to pay legal costs arising from the judicial review proceedings in circumstances where that case is comprehensively over.

56. All of this is legal nonsense. PwC are not a party to these proceedings, but neither is there any legal mechanism that would allow the court to make such orders in these proceedings. He is simply deluding himself if he thinks that he can reopen the judicial review proceedings by way of these proceedings. A little bit of law is a dangerous thing. The reliefs sought are frivolous and vexatious and are bound to fail and no further amendment will save them.

Isaac Wunder Application

57. Mr Cole points out that the Courts Service has no choice but to deal with persons such as Mr Nowak. It is their duty. He says that unless an Isaac Wunder order is granted in relation to his client, it will be burdened by his continually issuing proceedings against it. He says that his persistence is not aligned with his outcomes. In those circumstances he urges the court to make the order.

The Law relating to Isaac Wunder orders

58. In Osborne v. Gorey Business Park (Ramstown) Limited 2024 IEHC 356, I set out the applicable law in regard to the making of an Isaac Wunder order, which I do not intend to repeat. Suffice to say the leading authority is the case of Kearney v. Bank of Scotland [2020] IECA 224, where Whelan J. set out a useful summary of the factors that a court should have regard to in making such an order.

59. She found that such an order should only be made to the extent necessary so as to prevent the abuse of court processes and the pursuit of vexatious litigation and no further. Other factors include the history of the litigation between the parties connected with common issues, that there are good grounds for believing that there would be further proceedings instituted unless such an order was made, the balancing exercise between the competing rights of the parties in regard to the constitutional rights of a plaintiff, that no legitimate claim should be precluded from being heard and determined, save in exceptional circumstances. Where possible, the litigant should be forewarned of any intended application, and that a clear and compelling case must be identified as to why the order is necessitated.

60. In this case the Plaintiff has issued multiple sets of proceedings against a number of parties but in particular against the Courts Service. Due to its unique position in Irish society the staff of the Courts Service are obliged to interact with the general public. The vast majority of the general public are courteous and simply want the assistance of the staff to be able to correctly prepare their papers so as to be able to bring their applications to the attention of the court. Given the remarkable increase in litigants in person, that can be a very stressful activity. A very small minority are truculent, abusive and refuse to accept the decisions of the staff. Sadly, the Plaintiff falls into that category.

61. I am satisfied that any further litigation instituted by the Plaintiff against the Courts Service in relation to his unfounded allegations of conspiracy and fraud are an abuse of process. The very fact that these proceedings are found to have no merit and indeed are an impermissible collateral attack on the decision of the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court is evidence of that. To allow him to pursue further similar litigation, without the permission of the President of the High Court, would be to allow him to pursue vexatious litigation.

62. I make this order bearing in mind the history of the litigation between the parties and the history of similar litigation, all relating to similar issues. It is patently clear from his refusal to attend court in the afternoon, and his e-mail communication with the court, that he intends to appeal this decision, which is his right, if he is unsuccessful in that appeal, he will institute further proceedings.

63. In doing so, I am balancing his right of access to the court as an EU citizen as against an abuse of process. Naturally if he has a legitimate claim, he will be able to apply to the President, or a judge nominated by him, for permission to issue those proceedings.

64. In this case I am satisfied that not only was he aware that the application was going to be made, since he made submissions in relation to it, but that he has deliberately chosen not to attend court in the afternoon, accusing the court, among other things, of being a “kangaroo court.” Such abusive comments are unworthy but have not in any way prompted my decision. My decision is based upon the fact that he has issued multiple proceedings in relation to unmeritorious claims of a very serious nature, without a shred of evidence or likely success.

65. In those circumstances I shall make the orders sought.