{"id":188651,"date":"2025-12-12T22:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T22:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/188651\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T22:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T22:03:08","slug":"enoch-burke-fails-in-effort-to-temporarily-halt-disciplinary-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/188651\/","title":{"rendered":"Enoch Burke fails in effort to temporarily halt disciplinary hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

School teacher Enoch Burke has failed to stop a hearing into his dismissal from going ahead.<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeal (CoA) has refused to grant Mr Burke a stay of the hearing of his appeal against his dismissal from Wilson\u2019s Hospital School going ahead on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke, who is currently incarcerated over his contempt of court orders, on Friday appeared before a three-judge CoA panel to move his application seeking to temporarily halt the Disciplinary Appeals Panel hearing in Athlone.<\/p>\n

Mr Justice Mary Faherty, Mr Justice Donald Binchy and Ms Justice Nuala Butler refused Mr Burke\u2019s application, stating that they were satisfied that he would suffer no prejudice from the hearing going ahead.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke sought a stay in circumstances where he wants to appeal to the Supreme Court over two separate CoA judgments that he says make \u201copposed\u201d findings of fact relating to the basis of the Co Westmeath school\u2019s disciplinary action against him.<\/p>\n

He said the disciplinary panel hearing going ahead would cause him irreparable harm.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke was a teacher at the school until his suspension three years ago, arising from his behaviour in reaction to a direction from the then-principal to address a transitioning student with they\/them pronouns. He was later dismissed.<\/p>\n

Restraining order<\/p>\n

Soon after Mr Burke\u2019s suspension, the school obtained an order restraining his attendance at the school premises.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke has continually breached this order, resulting in his spending over 500 days in jail for contempt of court.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke has claimed his jailing is over his standing up for his Christian beliefs under the Constitution, and his opposition to what he calls \u201ctransgenderism\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Mr Burke said that a CoA judgment delivered by Ms Justice Faherty in July 2025 made errors by refusing to acknowledge that it departed from findings of fact in an earlier CoA judgment delivered by Mr Justice John Edwards.<\/p>\n

Appeal refused<\/p>\n

Refusing Mr Burke\u2019s appeal to the granting of an interim injunction restraining his attendance at Wilson\u2019s Hospital School, Mr Justice Edwards in March 2023 wrote that there was no evidence Mr Burke was suspended because of his views, or his objection to the school\u2019s \u201cinclusive policy\u201d.<\/p>\n

This statement is \u201cdiametrically opposed\u201d to the CoA\u2019s observation in Ms Justice Faherty\u2019s judgment, Mr Burke said, which stated that the principal\u2019s instruction relating to the pupil\u2019s pronouns was a \u201ckernel\u201d of the case.<\/p>\n

Ms Justice Faherty\u2019s judgment related to Mr Burke\u2019s successful appeal over the composition of a previous disciplinary panel set up to hear his appeal against his dismissal.<\/p>\n

Even though the judgments came to opposing conclusions on the issue, Mr Burke submitted, Ms Justice Faherty\u2019s judgment refused to acknowledge that Mr Justice Edwards was in error.<\/p>\n

Board management<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s Hospital School\u2019s board of management are \u201cforcibly relying\u201d on Mr Justice Edwards\u2019 judgment in the pending disciplinary hearing, Mr Burke submitted. He claimed that the judgment was ringing with \u201cauthority\u201d and \u201cabsolutism\u201d when it addressed the basis of the disciplinary action, and will be \u201cringing in the ears\u201d of the disciplinary panel.<\/p>\n

He said that the existence of two judgments with opposing findings of fact has prejudicial consequences for the proper administration for the disciplinary panel.<\/p>\n

In those circumstances, he said was seeking a stay pending the outcome of his Supreme Court appeal relating to the perceived opposition between the two judgments.<\/p>\n

Padraic Lyons SC, appearing for the Disciplinary Appeals Panel with barrister Hugh McDowell, opposed the application. Mr Lyons said there was no reason why the \u201cperceived tension\u201d between the remarks in the judgments should mean that Mr Burke will not get a fair trial before the panel.<\/p>\n

Ruling<\/p>\n

Delivering the court\u2019s ruling, Ms Justice Faherty said they were satisfied that Mr Burke would suffer no prejudice from the hearing going ahead.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"High<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/p>\n

High Court judge comprehensively rejects Enoch Burke’s ‘errors’ claims<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The judge said the court was satisfied that nothing has been determined by either CoA judgment that falls to be determined by the Disciplinary Appeals Panel.<\/p>\n

She noted Mr Justice Binchy\u2019s suggestion that it would be helpful if it were acknowledged that no finding of fact can arise from judgment in applications for interlocutory relief, and that the panel should not rely on either CoA judgment in its decision.<\/p>\n

The judge said it was helpful that counsel for the panel said that this was a point well made and that the suggestion could be conveyed to the panel.<\/p>\n

The court made an order for costs against Mr Burke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"School teacher Enoch Burke has failed to stop a hearing into his dismissal from going ahead. The Court…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-188651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}