A FIANNA FÁIL activist is to take his challenge against gender quotas in Irish politics to the Supreme Court after his action was dismissed in the High Court today.
Brian Mohan, who had hoped to run as a candidate for the party in the Dublin Central constituency, had his action dismissed in a reserved judgement this morning.
Mohan had challenged sections of the Electoral Act 2012 which sees the state funding of parties slashed unless 30% (at a minimum) of a party’s electoral candidates for a general election are women and vice versa.
Mohan, a barman and student at DCU, had claimed that cutting a party’s funding by 50% should it fail to abide by gender quotas would render it impossible for that party to function properly.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie a disappointed-sounding Mohan said that his challenge to today’s judgement will be lodged in the coming days and that the appeal will be taken immediately to the Supreme Court rather than the Court of Appeal.
“I wish I’d won the EuroMillions now,” he said.
The appeal will be lodged in the next couple of days, and we’ll most likely go straight for the Supreme Court.
The Court of Appeal tends to drag things out, we think we’ll get a fairer shake at it in the Supreme Court.
Mohan says that he is “disappointed that the judge didn’t let me get over the first hurdle”.
He (Justice David Keane) didn’t let me discuss my legal arguments, he simply didn’t let me make them as he said I wasn’t entitled legally to challenge the ruling.
The fact is I genuinely think what I’m doing is right. But these things take time.
Fianna Fáil’s candidate for Dublin Central in the forthcoming election is Mary Fitzpatrick.
Last September Fianna Fáil members in two Dublin constituencies, Central and South-Central, were instructed that they were only allowed pick a female candidate for the election.
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