The Gazette 1975

business of judging, as soon as the lawyers have ex- pressed thc : r views upon the ease without having to wait for this odd functionary to express his views on the case ? When I asked that question I received a variety of answers—some historical— for instance the rather ob- vious one that, of the six States who were parties to the founding Treaties, most had Advocates-General, by one name or another, in their highest Courts, so that it would have seemed odd to them not to have Advo- cates-General at this Court. I have also heard practical answers of one sort and another, some of them quite pertinent. But the real answer, I think, though it may be an ex post facto rationalisation, is that this is a Court at the same time of first instance and of last instance. There is no appeal from it. Yet it has to make some decisions of far-reaching importance. So it is right that its procedure should provide for a two stage process of decision. The Advocate-General's opin.on is the first stage. It is akin therefore to having two hearings rolled up in one avoiding the necessity of having an appeal to another Court. The same thought is at the root of the fact that our Supreme Court never likes to decide a point that has not been dealt with by the Courts below. Let us now consider the jurisdiction of the Court. This is, on paper, immensely varied, as you have ob- served from reading the Treaties and some subsequent Conventions. In practice it covers three main cate- gories of cases : (i) References for preliminary rulings (ii) Direct actions, and (iii) Staff cases. Staff cases are far less important than the other two ( PHOTOGRAPHY ] for Legal Purposes LOCATIONS ACCIDENTS MEWCAland NJURYCASES RECORDS Expert photography in BlackAWhite and Colour. Experience in all types of photography, including Medical /Clinical work. write or telephone BERYL STONE PhotoTechniques 1 Phone . 30 Morehampton Road .Dublin 4 1684111 .306

Department ministering to its needs in the matter of finance, accommodation, equipment, staff or ancillary services. The Court is a self-administering institution, within the limits of a budget approved by the Euro- pean Parlirment and the Council of Ministers. Secondly, there is the linguistic problem. Because the Court has to cope with up to seven languages it must have a fairly large staff of translators, with, of course, attendant clerical staff. The translation department alone employs over 80 people; though it is fair to say that at the moment while the Irish language section is non existant, the English and Danish sections are tem- porarily rather larger than they would normally be be- cause tl.cv are busy not only with the current work of the Court but also with the Translation into Danish and English of the back volumes of the Official Reports of the Court's decisions. The Irish Government have resolved not to have copies of any documents available in Irish other than the Treaties and documents con- cerning the accession of 1973. This was formally stated by the government at paragraph 30, page 83, of the White Paper of January 1972, published prior to The Accession of Ireland to the European Communities. Coming back to the judicial side of things, I do not suppose t' at there is much need to explain to you what a Judge i.;. But I have no doubt an Irish Solicitor will ask what an Advocate-General is. This is hardly surprising, since he is a Judicial figure quite unknown to the Irish judicial system. Mark you, in this we are not unique. He is equally unknown in some of the other Member States, and it seems that, even in those States that have Advocates-General in their systems, the status and role of these are, in most of their Courts, different from those of an Advocate-General at the Communities Court. T h e Advocate-General I will start by stating what an Advocate-General is not. First and foremost, despite the label he wears, he is not an Advocate for anybody. Secondly, it is inaccurate to liken his function to that of a Judge-Advocate at a Court Martial or of an amicus curiae. In a way the nearest analogy in our system to the relationship between the Advocate-General and the Judge of the European Court is the relationship be- tween a High Court Judge and the Supreme Court. 1 he Advocate-General is the member of the Court who has the first go at saying how he thinks a case ought to be decided. His opinion looks and reads for all the world like an Irish High Court Judge's reserved judg- ment, except that it culminates in an expression of view as to how the case should be decided instead of in an order. After it has been delivered, the Judges gather together and decide whether that view is right or wrong or partly right and partly wrong. There are four main differences between an Advo- cate-General and an Irish Judge of the High Court. T he first is that the Advocate-General hears a case at the same time as the Judges, instead of hearing it alone first. 1 he second is that his opinion is never decisive- it is as though, in Ireland, every case automatically went to the Supreme Court. The third is that his opinion can never be commented on by the parties And the fourth is that he delivers it standing up instead of sitting down. After that, you may well ask: why have Advocates- General? Why cannot the Judges just get on with the