The case of Joseph X

Picture the scene: It is 1985, over twenty-seven years ago, when Joseph, working in England, hears that his father has passed away. He returns to his native Donegal to tidy up his father’s affairs and decide what to do with the family farm, whereupon he discovers that his father’s solicitor (now a High Court Judge) had illegally altered the details on the deeds of the farm, for the purposes of obtaining a loan for the solicitor’s own private use.

Upon challenging the solicitor on the matter, Joseph was soon to find out what it meant to be ‘politically connected’ in Donegal, because he was lifted off the street - literally - by the Gardai and placed under arrest apparently for not filing a tax return. Joseph had had no warnings or court appearance; and no charges or arrest warrant was filed before he was arrested.

Joseph wrote numerous letters and lodged several formal complaints about the unjust treatment he was being subjected to, but all the authorities he approached have either ignored him or actively conspired to silence him. Court hearings were conducted without his knowledge, documents were forged or backdated, and certain Judges made illegal and unconstitutional decisions denying Joseph his fundamental human rights.  

Joseph has since been arrested and imprisoned several times, spending many weeks in jail on contrived or spurious charges. Writing to the Garda Commissioner, the Chief Justice, the Minster for Justice and even the President of Ireland, Joseph outlined several undoubted incidences of malicious acts of deliberate harassment by the authorities, but received no fruitful replies. While being mercilessly harassed by the Gardai, the Revenue Commissioners and the Courts, his tormentor the High Court Judge (who also features in other ‘I-I’ members’ cases) has advanced rapidly through the system, becoming more powerful and influential at every stage.  

This ‘do-wrong-and-get-promoted’ pattern is disturbingly evident amongst a broad range of senior civil servants and other well-connected persons.