The Gazette 1994

GAZETTE

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER

1994

N e w Pub l i c Re l a t i o ns E x e c u t i ve a p p o i n t ed

In Poetic Justice above, the poet refers to litigants who found that on leaving the courts, their stories were preserved for posterity in the law reports. The litigants may never have understood fully the reasons why, (the barristers and solicitors may not have foreseen the consequences) but they all did add to the law of the land. It would be a trite cliché to say that 1992 was an exceptional year for law cases; every year presents its own surprises. Yet few will forget the X Case - Attorney General v. X [1992] ILRM 401; [1992] 1 IR 1 [1992]; 2 CMLR 277. Miss X, a 14 year-old girl, a victim of sexual abuse, decided with her parents she would go to England for an abortion. The Attorney General sought an injunction restraining her from leaving the jurisdiction and having an abortion. McCarthy, O'Flaherty and Egan JJ) to one (Hederman J) that Article 40.3.3 permitted abortion where there was a real and substantial risk to the life, as distinct from the health, of the mother which could only be avoided by an abortion. The authors note that the analysis and holding of Finlay CJ, McCarthy, O'Flaherty and Egan JJ "provoked an outpouring of public controversy and legal and political assessment". The authors, Raymond Byrne, barrister, lecturer in law at Dublin City University and editor of The Irish Law Times and Professor William Binchy, Regius Professor of Laws at j Trinity College, Dublin, are part of a body of critics ever on the watch. The authors criticise the opinions of the Supreme Court in the X Case and of judges in other cases. Í A celebrated judge noted that he remembered with a sense of great relief, "of an incubus cast aside", ! when he passed his final examination in law school. That was a chapter The Supreme Court held by a majority of four (Finlay CJ, closed. He might make mistakes in the future but he would no longer make them under the eyes of examiners charged with the special duty of exposing his failings and giving them a quantitative value in comparison

with his virtues. Exposure, he said, would be a matter of chance. "A class of professional detectives would no longer be on his tracks". The judge continued by stating that once on the Bench you may think you are safe. Alas, it is not so! The examiners still crowd about; the writers and commentators in the law schools and in the universities are waiting at the door: "Let there be a joint in your armour, a flaw in your opinion, it will not be long before probe and scalpel will The writer of this notice has sympathy and understanding for the judges who must decide cases quickly without the benefit of the leisure of some scholars in their study. Nevertheless, we should welcome the increasing influence of the extra-judicial agencies - the scholars and commentators in the universities and other institutes of learning. Vinogradoff in Common Sense in Law tells us that in former times the practice was followed by German Courts "of sending up the documents of a case to the law faculty of a university of some standing" - in order to obtain a consultation "as to the proper decision". It is by analysis and criticism together with intellectual honesty that the law will grow in respectability. We owe a debt of gratitude to Raymond Byrne and Professor Binchy. The Annual Review is a treasury of scholarship and practical guidance. The authors are masters of juristic thought. But let no one consider that this is an esoteric publication. Issues from employer's liability, schools' negligence, liability for dogs - matters of everyday significance for lawyers - i to pre-incorporation contracts and liquidator's powers to ratify them are expose a gaping wound. The examiner is near at hand".

Catherine Dolan has been appointed by the Society as Public Relations Executive and Editor of the Gazette. She took up her position Monday, 14 November 1994. She is formerly of Park Public Relations, Merrion Square. Catherine came first in the DIT Graduate Diploma in Public Relations in the College of Commerce, Rathmines. She obtained a Distinction and won the Public Relations Institute Award for the best PR student and the Marketing Opinion magazine award for best overall student. She has worked both in the public and the private sector. She has an Honours Law Degree from Trinity College Dublin which she obtained while working in Dublin Corporation, Planning Department. She also spent some time working with McCann FitzGerald, Solicitors. English Agents: Agency work undertaken for Irish solicitors in both litigation and non-contentious matters - including legal aid. Fearon & Co., Solicitors, Westminster House, 12 The Broadway, Woking, Surrey GU21 5AU.

all considered by influential commentators in a lucid and : impressive manner.

Dr. Eamonn G. Hall

Tel: 0044-483-726272. Fax: 0044-483-725807.

373