The Gazette 1982

GAZETTE

JULY/AUGUS T 1982

BOOK REVIEW

barrister before he was appointed a judge of the High Court in 1937. It has been stated by an experienced colleague that Gavan Duffy's most clearly distinctive feature as a lawyer was his passionate devotion to the advancement of human rights and the rights of private citizens as against the executive authority. A major essay which he published on the need for law reform confirms this statement and distinguishes him as a liberal and far-seeing judge. In the essay he advocated the abolition of primogeniture and the Royal prerogative. He called for a reform of the law relating to charities and adoption and the modernisation of company law and arbitration. With keen foresight he also advocated generally the legal-right principle in favour of a testator's surviving spouse and, in the law of tort, he sought the abolition of the action for seduction and the clarification of the concept of concurrent wrongdoers. Most important of all he would abolish the 'last opportunity' rule, apply the rules of contributory negligence and legislate for the survival of certain causes of action on the death of a claimant. Years later when most of these reforms have been implemented one realises how profound was his appreciation of the need for reform. Mr. Golding humbly asserts that his book is merely a modest judicial biography and that many helpful guidelines were taken from earlier biographical studies of judges. In particular he acknowledges his debt to Mr. Vincent Delany who had summarised the legacy of Chief Baron Palles in relation to his contribution to the law. With the mass of material available in the form of his judgments the author considers that it would be presumptuous to have even attempted to utilise them all in endeavouring to analyse Mr. Justice Gavan Duffy's legal method, philosophy or style. However these judgments are considered at length in relation to the common law of Ireland, emergency legislation, judicial review and the Constitution and, finally, his work as a Chancery Judge. All the celebrated cases are discussed at length and several critical and even controversial views are expressed. The author considers that Cook -v- Carroll and Schlegel -v- Corcoran and Gross were regrettable judgments but he is generous in his comment in relation to the latter case. In the final analysis he considers that the judge should be remembered as a Catholic gentleman in the liberal continental tradition and for his great contribution to the development of the Constitution. Mr. Golding is a solicitor and is a lecturer in Business law at University College, Dublin. One is filled with admiration for the pains which he obviously took during the period of research and for the ability which he has shown in writing this book. He had many interviews with judges and lawyers during the course of his task and several of his statements are the result of personal communication with them. With thirty three pages of notes, supported by the relevant authorities, and six pages

George Gavan Duffy 1882-1951, A Legal Biography, by G. M. Golding. Irish Academic Press, 1982 (xvi, 224p.) £15.00. To write the life-story of a modern judge is a daunting task. Because of the nature of his office a judge is remote from the people and relatively remote from the legal profession. He must not merely be independent; he must be seen to be so. And the manner of his life is such that a biographer is deprived of those dramatic or eccentric touches which enliven a story and make it racy of the soil. Respectability is not a rich subject matter for biography unless it is accompanied by genius or sanctity. Sir Jonah Barrington acquired popularity only after he had been removed from the 18th century Irish Bench for financial impropriety and thereby found the time to write his delightful social memoirs which won for him posthumous fame and a plaque on his house in Harcourt Street, Dublin. Likewise Cicero is more honoured for his philosophical essays than for his speeches at the Bar or his public activities. If Plowden, Coke and Davies have acquired a noteworthy place in legal literature it is largely because they initiated or developed the important craft of law reporting at a time when the common law was taking shape. And it is precisely within the domain of the law reports that a good and learned judge finds a permanent place for his legal opinions as he endlessly pursues the elusive goddess of Justice down the arches of the years and through the dark undergrowth of modern commercial and industrial life. The man himself may be dead and forgotten but his judgments remain embalmed in their leather and buckram tombs and consulted by students and lawyers in their search for judicial precedent and the application of stare decisis. Why then has Mr. Golding disturbed the peace and rest of an Irish judge by writing his biography? In the first place he was different. A son of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, the future judge was born in Cheshire and educated in Nice and in England. His defencc of Roger Casement cost him his partnership in a firm of London solicitors and, after practising for a brief period under his own name, he moved his home permanently to Ireland and began to read for the Bar. He became a member of the team which negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 and became Minister for Foreign Affairs for a period and, ultimately, President of the High Court. Mr. Golding outlines the events of the early years and the period of his parliamentary life up to 1923 with ample notes and references. The chapter with most general interest for the legal profession, however, is likely to be that dealing with his years as a 210