The Gazette 1973

EEC measures would also require publication of the accounts of private companies, and would lay down the information about the company's affairs which had to be disclosed in them. Although rules of company law are not normally of direct concern to workers, all these rules are, since they will go far to give unions the information they need for collective bargaining. Worker participation in management Other EEC measures require two-tier management, with worker representation in the upper, supervisory tier, and for works councils with rights to be consulted and powers of veto over various matters. None of these exist under present Irish law. It was up to Irish trade unions to decide whether they wanted these rights, and if so on what basis. "Industrial democracy" is a relatively unfamiliar idea in Ireland, and much that has been said about it is vague and not clearly thought out. It involved obli- gatory consultation between workers and management, joint decision making, workers' rights to initiate pro- posals and to obtain information, at plant and shop floor level, executive level, and supervisory manage- ment level—or it could involve only some of these things, depending on the exact terms of the EEC measures when adopted. Numerous important legal questions were raised by the draft EEC proposals, and if not answered would have to be resolved by national laws or by the Courts. Would the workers' representatives be part time or full- Mr. Temple Lang said he was not trying to answer these questions, but only to raise them as typical of the kinds of issues raised by the process of harmonisa- tion of laws in the EEC. These issues should not be discussed and settled only by specialists in company law or EEC law : they affected everyone, and they need detailed public discussion and analysis. The legal revolution which the EEC could bring about was not just a matter for lawyers, and lawyers advising the EEC Commission or the Irish Department of Industry and Commerce could not advise satisfactorily on tech- nical questions arising out of EEC measures if there had not been sufficient public discussion of the big issues, none of them purely legal, which were involved. Trade unions and others should think a lot more than they seem to have done so far about the questions involved if the legal changes resulting from the EEC were to be the kind of changes they wanted. TOP E.E.C. LAW POST FOR IRISHMAN time, temporary or permanent? How far would they be subject to the workers instructions and how far bound to report back? Would they have the same rights as other supervisory board members to get financial and other information about the company's affairs, and would they have the right to have their own financial advisers examine the company's books for them? How would they be trained, and how paid? What rights would they have to information on pricing and expense accounts, and on information which would be useful in making wage claims? Would they have a right to find out the ownership and control of the company—which even directors have not got under existing law?

Dermot J. Devine who is son of retired Chief Garda Superintendent, Joseph and Dr. Ita Devine, Ardagh Court, Athlone, has been appointed Head of the Department of International Law at the EEC Head- quarters, a post which he will take up in September. After qualifying as a solicitor in 1956 .he practiced in Athlone for four years before taking up the post of Registrar in the Supreme Court, Naroibi in 1960. In 1964 he was appointed lecturer in Law to the University of Capetown, a post he has held to date. He obtained his L.L.B. at the University of Pretoria and was awarded the Honours Degree Cum Laude. He was conferred with the degree of L.L.D. at Capetown Professional men and women, such as lawyers, doctors and architects, are supposed to be able to practise freely anywhere in the European Economic Community. But this freedom of establishment has remained vir- tually stillborn—largely because national professional bodies themselves have disagreed on conditions for the mutual recognition of degrees and diplomas. No Ger- man dentist will try to practise in France, for example, if his qualifications are not recognised, and he has to train a second time. In other words, the Nine have to work out an "equivalence" between an engineer who qualified after three years at university followed by a two-year prac- tical course and one whose diploma is based on four years' study at a technical institute. Since 1967 the Commission has made 40 proposals for the mutual recognition of diplomas for ten pro- fessions, including architects, accountants, nurses, doc- tors, chemists and lawyers. Member governments have not accepted one of them. The proposals generally

University in June this year. His thesis was an exten- sive work on international law. Dermot received his secondary education at the Marist College, Athlone and Clongowes Wood College and took his first L.L.B. degree at U.C.D., taking first place and first-class honours. In the Incorporated Law Society's Intermediate Examinations, he took first place, with honours and also won the centenary medal. In his final solicitors' examination he took second place with honours and silver medal. sought to set minimum standards and length of educa- tion. In the enlarged Community the problem is likely to be even harder, mainly because of the greater auto- nomy exercised by professional bodies in Britain. Now a new approach has come from the Commis- sioner in charge, Ralf Dahrendorf. In his view, the Commission should look at what degrees and diplomas qualify one to do, not at how they were obtained. To avoid the impression that the Eurocrats would be imposing rules on the professions, he advocates a series of public hearings at each of which representatives of a given profession could state their viewpoint. This would be an innovation in the Community's law-making pro- cess. Herr Dahrendorf also suggests that European educa- tional passports be issued to those whose qualifications entitled them to study or practise freely anywhere in the Nine. —European Community, July/August 1973

He is 37 years old and is brother-in-law of Senator Brian Lenihan, the former Minister for Foreign Affairs. NEW PROPOSALS ON EEC RECOGNITION

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