The Gazette 1967/71

7. The advice of organisation and methods experts and consumer bodies should be be taken on how to reduce legal delay and expense. 8. Independent bodies should review com plaints against solicitors and barristers. Miss Lethbridge shows that, although the English criminal trial has great assets, some re cent reforms such as the introduction of a major ity verdict breaches the rule that the case be proved beyond reasonable doubt. Margaret Laing mentions cases where thousands of pounds were spent, uselessly to defend principles which were not upheld. At the inaugural meeting of the Young Barris- ters's Society in the Marine Hotel, Dun Laoghaire, strong criticism of the present legal system came from the Minister for Justice, Mr. O'Malley, last night. He also expressed hopes that the divisions that existed between solicitors and barristers could be dissolved. The present legal system, which was almost unique outside these islands and which was in herited from England, made for inefficiency and expense. "A system" he said, "which involves the oper ation of what in effect are two separate pro fessions and which required the retaining of a solicitor and two or three barristers to represent a client in the High Court is beyond the compre hension of the ordinary citizen, not to mention "beyond" his means. The legal profession had failed to adjust to the needs of modern society and this failure was due more than anything to the opposition of vested interests in the profession who were opposed to change for the reasons of self interest. The unification of the two branches of the pro fession was closely bound up with the question of legal education. The present system was not broad enough and he advocated that an understanding of the psychological, sociological and philosophi cal implications of human behaviour were de sirable in teaching law. LEGAL SYSTEM CRITICISED BY MINISTER

Greater emphasis should be put on compara tive law which was so important in the context or our law reform programme. In considering our system of legal education we must take into account the fact that membership of the Common Market might soon become a reality and that this would mean changes in the legal system if our lawyers and barristers were to operate in other countries. The present division of the legal profession into solicitors and barristers was bound to give rise to difficulty when we come to adapt ourselves to membership of the Common Market. "One of the criticisms," he said, "of the present division in the profession is that it gives rise to a lot of duplication of work." The new Courts Bill which he said he hopes to introduce in the New Year would include a pro vision entitling solicitors to a right of audience in every court in the country. There were those who argued that, while in theory every citizen is equal before the law, in practice the scales of justice were heavily weighted in favour of the rich. Mr. Justice J. Kenny emphasised that he was expressing a personal opinion which should not be taken in any way as indicating the likely con sensus of views of the Committee on Court Pro cedure and Practice of which he was a member. The future of the courts and legal profession, he said, would be bound up with their previous ex perience of finding that the Dail and Senate in stead of giving general principles which the Courts would be asked to work out tended to issue multi tudinous details. Mr. T. Finlay, S.C., disagreed with the Min ister's suggestion that fusion of the two branches of the profession would solve a lot of problems. He saw a much greater danger in the rise of powerful corporations who would be financially too strong for the individual. (Irish Independent, 8 December 1970) HOW TO PICK JUDGES A new manner of selecting judges was suggested by Mr. Scan MacBride, S.C., when he addressed the inaugural meeting of the U.C.D. Law Society 169