The Gazette 1993

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GAZETTE

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NOVEMBER 1993

Society's Courts Submission Criticised

By Dr. Eamonn Hall The main news story impacting on the solicitors' profession during the month of October, was the criticisms by the President of the High Court, (during an address to a Parchment Ceremony in the Society) about the joint Law Society/Bar Council submission to the Minister for Justice on the courts service.' In a front-page article in the Irish Independent of 23 October, 1993, entitled "Guilty: top Judge gets tough with greedy lawyers", the newspaper reported that the President of the High Court had made a hard-hitting attack on the joint submission and that he had accused the two bodies of presenting an unfair and distorted picture in relation to the hearing of cases in the High Court. The article also reported that the Judge had stated that the proposal for an executive agency under a director to manage the courts service would be an interference with judicial independence. The article said that Mr. Justice Liam Hamilton had claimed that lawyers had opted to bring actions in the High Court - where legal fees were greater - when they could have been settled at less cost by the Circuit Court and that he blamed his legal colleagues for creating a logjam by flooding the High Court with cases in advance of new legislation that would have increased the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court. The editorial in the

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News items in the Irish Independent of 15 October and the Evening Herald of the following day, reported that "a row was looming" between solicitors' representatives and the Department of Justice over who would fund the solicitors' "watchdog" to be appointed under the new Solicitors Bill. The reports claimed that the Minster of State at the Department of Justice, Willie O'Dea, had written to the Law Society stating that the Society would be responsible for bearing the cost of the office. A one-page article in the Irish Independent of 19 October, entitled "Bad Lawyers - the people are fighting back" focused on the activities of the Irish Farm Family Therapy Group. The article reported that the IFFTG claimed that it represented some 3,000 people and that it had received in excess of 800 complaints about solicitors since January, 1993, and 560 of these were to be presented in a block complaint to the Law Society in the near future. The article reported allegations by Ted Cunningham, PRO of the IFFTG, that at meetings in the Law Society offices, solicitprs had admitted to wrongdoings and that the Director General of the Law Society had stated that mistakes were made. The article reported a Law Society spokesperson rejecting the accusations by the IFFTG and specifically denying that the Director General of the Law Society had ever made such a statement. The spokesperson claimed that the IFFTG had deliberately misquoted to the media comments made at meetings with the Society. Irish Farm Family Therapy Group

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The then Mr. Justice Liam Hamilton, President of the High Court.

agency and that such an agency would not interfere with the role of judges but would concentrate on improving facilities for the public. The Irish Times article also quoted from the address given by the President of the Society, Raymond Monahan, in which he had said that the proposed agency would have no implications for judicial independence. The article also quoted Raymond Monahan criticising the absence of a properly funded civil legal aid scheme. The Evening Press of 23 October, 1993, reported that a "war of words" had broken out between lawyers and one of the country's top judges. The Chairman of the Bar Council, Frank Clarke, SC, was quoted saying that, by concentrating on the part of the submission that dealt with personal injury cases only, Judge Hamilton had ignored the overall problem and he pointed out that in the previous week the Judge had been faced with a case which had been postponed for the third time because there had been no judge available to hear it. A Law Society spokesperson was quoted as saying that Judge Hamilton had isolated one aspect of the submission which needed to be examined in its entirety.

Irish Independent of the same day reported on Mr. Justice Hamilton's comments in a supportive way.

The Irish Times on 23 October, 1993, also reported on the criticisms by the President of the High Court. The report quoted the Director General of the Law Society, Noel Ryan, saying that the judge appeared to have misunderstood what the Society was saying about the proposed executive

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