Teacher to remain in prison after court extends injunction against him
A teacher who objects to addressing a student with the pronoun ‘they’ is to remain in Mountjoy Prison after telling the High Court that he will not comply with an injunction preventing him from attending or teaching at the secondary school where he is employed.
Enoch Burke was committed to prison earlier this week until he agrees to obey a court order not to attend at or attempt to teach any classes at Wilson’s Hospital School in County Westmeath, which suspended him from his position as a teacher of History and German.
He told the court that even if he had to remain in prison for “every hour of every day for the next 100 years”, he would not compromise his beliefs nor agree to comply with the terms of the court order.
The order was granted after the school’s lawyers claimed that Mr Burke was not complying with either the terms of his paid suspension, as well as the injunction requiring him to stay away from the school.
When matter returned before the High Court today, Wednesday, Mr Justice Max Barrett, after considering submissions from Mr Burke and Rosemary Mallon, BL, for the school, ruled that the injunction should remain in place until the action has been fully determined by the High Court.
In his ruling, the judge accepted that the school’s board of management argument that the application before the court on Wednesday was not about Mr Burke’s opposition to transgenderism nor his religious beliefs.
It was as the school submitted, about Mr Burke’s refusal to comply with the terms of his paid suspension and the terms of the injunction obtained by the school.
Issues raised by Mr Burke, the judge added, were matters for either the full hearing of the dispute, or at the hearing of the disciplinary process commenced by the school against the teacher.
They were not something the court could take into account at this stage.
The judge accepted that the criteria had been made out to entitle the school to have the injunction put in place until pending the outcome of the full hearing.
Noting Mr Burke’s intention not to purge his contempt, the judge directed that he be returned to Mountjoy.
The judge also ordered Mr Burke to pay the legal costs the school has incurred for bringing the applications before the courts.
The matter was adjourned for a week.
Ms Mallon argued to the court that the case before the judge was not about the teacher’s opposition to transgendarism, nor his objection to the school’s direction to staff last May to refer to ‘a boy’ as being ‘a girl’ at the school.
Counsel said the court was being asked to rule on applications brought arising out of Mr Burke’s refusal to comply with what the school says is the teacher’s “lawful suspension” arising out of allegations about his conduct.
Counsel said that the school had no wish to see Mr Burke in prison but given his refusal to comply with the orders and his stated intention to attend at the school, her client was left with “no option” other than to bring proceedings before the High Court.
In his submissions Mr Burke said that despite spending the last two nights in prison he did not intend to comply with the court’s orders, as to do so would be a denial of his deeply held Christian beliefs.
Representing himself, he disagreed with counsel submission’s regarding what the case is about.
He said that he was before the courts over his refusal to comply with what he said is his unlawful suspension over his attitude towards a direction by the school to address one of its students by a different pronoun was to deny him his constitutional rights to religious freedom.
“That is the issue,” he said.
Transgenderism, he said, was contrary to scripture, and that in this instance he would “only obey God,” and would “not obey man”.
He said that by agreeing to comply with his suspension would be akin to agreeing with transgenderism.
During his submissions Mr Burke commended himself for his stance regarding the order, was critical of the courts regarding its treatment of him, and quoted the poet Robert Frost.
Mr Burke also said that the disciplinary procedures against him by the school are flawed and described any allegation of gross misconduct against him as being “ludicrous”.
He said he had voiced his opposition to the school’s direction; he said the student at the centre of the request was not in any of his classes, nor had he had any direct dealings with that particular student.