HC Deb 25 March 1886 vol 303 cc1776-7
MR. W. O'BRIEN(for Mr. T. M. HEALY) (Tyrone, S.)

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If his attention has been called to certain proceedings at the recent Monaghan Assizes, when Lord Chief Baron Palles had before him for adjudication, by way of appeal from decisions of Judge Barron, County Court Judge for the county of Monaghan, certain cases, four in number, in which one George Blackburne, a receiver appointed by the order of the County Court over a farm of land in the townland of Carrowkeel, county Monaghan, the property of a man named Sherry, was, in consequence of the irregular order under which said receiver acted, mulcted in damages and costs in said Civil Bill appeals in a sum amounting to over £40, and did the Chief Baron, who tried the cases, state, in delivering judgment, that neither the County Court, the highest court in the land, nor the House of Lords itself could make such an order as that under which the said Blackburne acted as receiver, and that Blackburne had no more right to bring an action for trespass on foot of the said order than that his butler would have to bring an action against him (the Lord Chief Baron), and did the Lord Chief Baron further caution litigants in future from using orders framed in such an illegal manner as that, if they did, they would certainly get themselves into serious trouble; and, what course the Government propose to adopt in future so as to protect litigants at Monaghan County Court?

THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. JOHN MORLEY) (Newcastle-on-Tyne)

Mr. Barron is a County Court Judge, and the Executive, as an Executive, have no control over him, and would not be justified in calling upon him for an explanation of any particular judgment. It appears that in this case he has made a judgment which was erroneous; and probably the reversal of the decision complained of, coupled with the observations of the learned Chief Baron, will have the effect of preventing similar erroneous decisions again.