Omission on part of bank arguably gave rise to breach of natural justice

In or about July 1989, the applicant made an application to the respondent financial institution for a credit card - his original application form or agreement has been lost - in February 2012, the bank’s solicitors wrote to the applicant seeking the balance of €17,955.88 - in March 2012, an ordinary civil bill was issued - this civil bill was sent to an incorrect address, although the applicant did receive it as he entered an appearance in April 2012 - in October 2014 a motion was issued seeking summary judgment - in November 2014, the applicant made an application under the Data Protection Act 1988 for his data as held by the bank - in February 2015, the applicant attended at a branch of the defendant financial institution and collected the material - in March 2015, the County Registrar made an order for substituted service to allow the applicant be served by ordinary post - in April 2015, a notice of motion seeking summary judgment was served on the applicant - the applicant then issued his own motion for various reliefs including the production or discovery of documents on 15th May 2015 - the motion was heard on 19th May 2015, and was favourable to the applicant - order provided that the documents be sent to a branch of the defendant for collection by the applicant - such omissions as existed in the applicant’s data pack as previously furnished appear to have arisen more from the non-existence or non-availability of documents, in particular the original agreement, rather than from a failure to disclose them - on 20th July 2015, the applicant brought a motion seeking to strike out the proceedings for failure to furnish documentation as per the order - financial institution then wrote to the applicant on 24th July 2015 stating that documents would be available for collection - on 28th July 2015, the applicant's motion to strike out was refused and summary judgment granted on the financial institution's motion - an execution order was issued in September 2015 - applicant then brought a motion that month seeking to set aside the the motion of 28th July 2015 - this motion was heard and refused in October 2015 - applicant now seeks leave to apply by way of judicial review for reliefs challenging the orders of the Circuit Court - the present ex parte application for judicial review was commenced on 2nd November 2015, which is slightly out of time as regards the order of 28th July 2015 - applicant said on affidavit that he was not given a copy of the order when he sought it - court deems this a good and sufficient reason for extending time for the present application - court is entitled to ask at this stage whether judicial review is the most appropriate remedy - Circuit Court clearly had the jurisdiction to grant judgment for a contractual or quasi-contractual debt - the court was affirmatively told on behalf of the bank that the applicant had received the data pack without also being told that the pack did not include the original application, or indeed that the reason for this was that the original application was not available to be produced to the applicant, or in evidence, or at all - financial institution did not affirm to Judge that applicant had not received credit card application form - since the financial institution omitted to confirm this to the Judge, he may have been under the impression that there was a conflict between the parties as to what was furnished - this omission gives rise to grounds for judicial review of the decision on grounds of breach of fairness or natural justice - the proceedings brought by the bank did not distinguish between the amounts due as principal and those due by way of interest - in those circumstances it is appropriate to stay enforcement of the judgment as a whole pending the determination of these proceedings - time extended for bringing the application for leave - order of certiorari granted - applicant granted liberty to amend the statement grounding the application for relief.