The Gazette 1952-1955

find themselves in complete agreement with the Supreme Court, but they would add that had they felt any hesitation in the matter they would require a very strong case before they substituted their own opinion of what is professional mis­ conduct in the Federation for the conclusion reached by the Disciplinary Committee and the Supreme Court. As Darling, L ., said in relation to England in In re A Solicitor, Ex parte Eaw Society (1912) 1 K .B . 302 : “ The Law Society are very good judges o f what is professional misconduct as a solicitor, just as the General Medical Council are very good judges o f what is misconduct as a medical man.” (Rajasooria v. Disciplinary Committee ( 1955 ) 1 W.L.R. 405 ). Irish Company not entitled to recover rent in England without a licence in mortmain.—Eormer identical decision not given p e r incuriam.—Applies also to registered land. In Morelle v. Waterworth (1954) 2 All E .R . 673, the Court o f Appeal (Singleton, Denning and Morris, L. JJ.) , decided, in one day, that a company registered in Eire, neither incorporated nor regis­ tered under the Companies Acts and having no place of business in this country, were not entitled to recover rent on premises the residue of a lease o f which had been assigned to them, since, the company not having obtained a licence in mortmain, section 1 o f the Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act, 1888, applied. Rodnall Ltd. v. Ludbrook, a similar case but in which the lease had been registered, was decided in the same sense at the same time on counsel’s concession that it was indistinguishable. The present case was likewise similar to Morelle v. Waterworth, save that the company was registered in H.M. Land Registry as the proprietor o f a pos­ sessory title to the leasehold interest in land in question. The registration was effected pursuant to a transfer by the previous registered proprietor o f that interest. The transfer was not, however, made in the prescribed statutory form. It was contended that the first Morelle case was decided p er incuriam since the subject-matter was o f a specialised and highly technical character which infrequently came before the Courts ; the arguments were brief, counsel for the company having only been instructed the previous afternoon ; there was consequently an absence o f sufficient emphasis on the feudal origin o f mortmain or the fact that the Act o f 1888 was a consolidating statute ; and the Crown was not represented. Held by the Court o f Appeal (Evershed, M. R., Denning, Jenkins, Morris and Romer, L. J J . ) ; (1) That the decision in Morelle v. Waterworth was not given p er incuriam. The general rule was that a decision should be held to have been given

p er incuriam only where it was given in ignorance or forgetfulness o f some inconsistent statutory provision or o f some authority binding on the court, so that in such cases some parts o f the decision or some step in the reasoning on which it was based was on that account demonstrably wrong. That was not so in Morelle v. Waterworth, and while the general rule was not necessarily exhaustive, cases not within it, which could properly be held to have been decided p er incuriam, must be o f the rarest occurrence. A decision was not to be treated as having been given p er incuriam because o f a deficiency o f parties, or because it might be made to appear that on an earlier occasion the court had not had the benefit of the best argument. (2) That Morelle v. Waterworth was not dis­ tinguishable on the ground that that case did not concern registered land. Nothing in section 23 of the Land Registration Act, 1925, ousted the saving o f the Crown’s right to forfeiture preserved by section 80, and by virtue o f that provision the forfeiture took immediate and automatic effect on the registration o f the transfer, just as it would have done on the execution and delivery o f an assignment o f unregistered leaseholds. Forfeiture was not suspended pending an order for rectification o f the register or contingent on such an order being obtained. But it would have made no effective difference if the forfeiture had occurred at any step o f the transaction earlier than the actual com­ pletion of the sale by registration o f the plaintiff company as proprietor. (Morelle v. Wakeling and another (1955) 2 W.L.R. 672). BAR ASSOCIATIONS. County Meath Sessional Bar Association. The following are the Officers and Committee for the year 1955 :—- President :—Mr. Patrick Noonan, Solicitor, Athboy ; Hon. Secretary and Treasurer: —Mr. Louis J. Noonan, Solicitor, Navan ; Committee : —Messrs. Alan Donnelly, Solicitor, N avan ; Nathaniel Lacy, Solicitor, K e lls; Anthony J. Malone, Solicitor, Trim ; John Noonan, Solicitor, Athboy ; William O. Armstrong, Solicitor, K e lls; Barry Steen, Solicitor, Navan. Dublin Solicitors’ Bar Association. A deputation from the Association was recently received by the Secretary o f the Department of Justice, when the deputation made representations concerning certain features of the working o f the Registry o f Deeds Office, and o f the Probate Office, and o f the unsatisfactory position concerning hire

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