The Gazette 1987

GAZETTE

JULY/ A UGUST

1987

tion, preferably in the form of a draft Civil Evidence Bill, the valuable work already done by the Commission in this area and have produced a detailed d i scuss i on paper on certain technical aspects of the law of evidence which has also been circulated on a limited basis. As to conveyancing, there has been no overall review of land or conveyancing law in Ireland in this century. The Working Group of specialists who are assisting the Commission in this area have wise- ly refrained from attempting any massive overhaul of the law in the short term, but instead have already isolated a number of specific anomalies where legisla- tion can be relatively straight- forward and uncontroversial, and where substantial advantages can be reaped in terms of savings both of time and expense. In considering what changes might be necessary to produce a long term programme of law reform relevant to contemporary needs, it is inevitable that the reform of family law will loom large. That need was already ap- parent when the first programme of law reform was adopted in 1976, since there was included in it a number of aspects of family law. No less than eleven reports were published by the Commission dealing with various aspects of family law and, in addition, their reports recom- mended the accession by the State to a number of important con- ventions prepared by the Hague Conference on Private International Law. Of the many recommend- ations contained in these various reports, only three have been implemented. The members of the Commission recognise that, while it is their role to advise, it is the prerogative of the Government and the Oireach- tas to decide in areas of law reform. But it would be taking an unduly blinkered view of the wide- ranging functions imposed by the Oireachtas itself on the Law Reform Commission to suppose that its interest in a particular area of law is exhausted once it has published its report and recom- mendations. The Commission itself may have much to learn from c r i t i c i sms advanced in the Oireachtas of proposals which it

has made and from the reasons given f r om time to time by Ministers for not seeking the imple- mentation of Commission recom- mendations. Equally, for its part, the Commission would be failing in its duty if it did not draw the atten- tion of the public, as indeed it has already done in its annual reports, to the extent to which its recom- mendations have not been imple- mented. The Commission would also be failing in its statutory obligation to keep the law under review if it did not constantly monitor the progress of its recom- mendations, ascertain where it can the reasons for their not being implemented and draw the atten- tion of the public specifically to those areas where, in its judgment, implementation is most urgently re- quired. All this, of course, is not to sug- gest that the Commission regards its work in the area of family law as now confined to monitoring the implementation of recommenda- tions already made. The Commis- sion has yet to make its recommendations as to the best type of judicial or Court structure or structures appropriate to deal with the different matters falling under the general heading of fami- ly law. It was already apparent to us that this is an aspect of the whole subject which is causing the gravest concern to those concern- ed with family law in all its aspects. We are conscious of the fact that in the general area of family law there is a serious imbalance bet- ween reports and recommen- dations on the one hand and legislative activity or executive action on the other. I have already drawn attention to the wide range of Commission recommendations which remain unimplemented. But over this whole field, there are reports from other agencies, some of them in the public domain for many years, many of whose recommendations for legal change have yet to be implemented. Of these, it is only necessary to men- tion the Report of the Joint Com- mittee of the Oireachtas on Marriage Breakdown, the Report of the Commission on the Status of Women, the Report of the Review Committee on Adoption Services, the Kennedy Report on Refor- matory and Industrial School Systems and the final Report of the

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LEGAL AID CASES UNDERTAKEN

M. Ansell, M.A., 9 8 T h e B r o a dwa y, H e me Ba y, Kent C T 6 8 E Y , En g l and Tel. (03 02273) 67929 (24 Hours)

Task Force on Child Care Services. This is a disquietingly lengthy list and it suggests strongly that, while there has been much activity in the reporting field, motivated by a strong sense of the urgent need to reform the law and exhibiting a wealth of ideas and an abundance of good intentions, many of the specific proposals for reform are not being actively pursued. On the other hand, the Commission ack- nowledges that many others are in the nature of outline proposals only and require much research and examination before being con- sidered as subjects for legislation. It is the Commission's intention in the near future to publish a short Discussion Paper tentatively entitl- ed Strategies for Reform in Family Law which will summarise the pre- sent state of affairs and suggest possible ways forward. Already preliminary soundings indicate that the priority for reform is the ad- ministration of justice in family cases. The Commission are most anx- ious to obtain the views of all in- terested members of the public on the topics which they will be ex- amining from time to time so as to ensure that the ever present danger of law reform proposals being pro- duced in a vacuum isolated from reality can be avoided so far as is humanly possible. It would be most interested to receive from any members of the public views they may have or facts that they may wish to bring to the Commission's attention on any of these topics. (Contd. on p. 135)

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