A secondary school has withdrawn its legal action over efforts to find out who was behind a closed-down Instagram account that made “coarse and vulgar” remarks about certain staff and students.
On Monday, the High Court was told by David Geoghegan BL, for the Salesian College in Limerick, the board of management had decided not to further pursue proceedings it took to find the identity from Facebook, owners of Instagram.
The board’s decision followed last month’s ruling by Mr Justice Garret Simons to refer a number of questions related to the case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
Rossa Fanning SC, for Facebook Ireland, said the reference to the ECJ now became moot notwithstanding the care and attention the High Court went to in dealing with the case.
The board of the school had taken the view for its own reasons not to further prosecute the case and the effect of that is that last month’s decision to refer to the ECJ withered away, he said.
Ronan Lupton BL told Mr. Justice Simons he represented the Article 19 Group, an international organisation concerned with freedom of expression issues and named after Article 19 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights (freedom of expression).
Mr. Lupton, who was instructed by FP Logue Solicitors, the Public Interest Law Alliance, and the Free Legal Advice Centre, said his clients had “looked forward” to making the application but, in view of the school’s decision, that would not now be happening.
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