Crofton -v- Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government.

The applicant was the Director of the National Association of Regional Games Council (‘the NARGC’) which is Ireland’s largest shooting and conservation organisation and was challenging the Minister’s policy of prohibiting shooting on State lands. The policy had been in place for several decades, but had only become problematic in recent times, by virtue of the acquisition by the State of substantial tracts of land which would previously have been available to members of the NARGC for shooting and conservation purposes. The issue before the Court was whether there had been a fettering of discretion by virtue of the policy not to permit shooting on State lands. The respondent argued that the applicant’s submissions on the issue of discretion are based on a false premise which assumes that the members of the NARGC are in possession of some actionable legal right to bear firearms and/or use firearms for recreational purposes. The respondent contended that in fact no such right exists under the Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights or otherwise. The activities of the NARGC are, in the respondent’s submission, carried out on foot of a specific privilege which is afforded to its members by the respondent. In this case, Section 11(2) of the State Property Act 1954 permitted the respondent to determine the extent, if any, to which access to and activities on National Parks and Wildlife Service lands should be restricted. The Minister had met with the applicant to discuss a report issued by a Scientific Review Group on Hunting, which had recommended a review of the non-hunting policy, although the Minister accepted that he had not considered the report in any detail. The Minister then refused to engage further with the applicant. On this basis, the Judge found that there was no evidence which suggested that the respondent had irrevocably closed his mind to the issue of hunting on this territory at some future date. Rather, the Minister had simply decided, for a multitude of reasons, that the workability of the administrative regime under his control, as well as the limited resources available to him, would best be preserved by the introduction of a generalised policy prohibiting shooting by any person.