The Gazette 1994

GAZETTE

M W H APRIL 1994

L A W B R I E

>|jV" ' !!' i l l » M l ! ) L A

By Dr. Eamonn G. Hall, Solicitor

paper on court dress, no changes would be made to the current code. Responses to the studies from jurors, witnesses and members of the public as well as from the legal profession and the judiciary revealed strong support for maintaining the status quo. The majority of those in favour of retaining court dress felt that formal dress had a significant role to play in maintaining respect for the authority and status of the court. Similarly, there was little support for changes to the wearing of formal dress on ceremonial occasions when robes were seen as marks of the importance of tradition. Justice Jerome Frank noted that judicial robes symbolised the notion that what has heretofore been done must be right; improvements and experimentation in novelties are always unwise; the populace must never profanely seek to modify inherited customs and institutions; "robe-ism" is still too much with us. The Bar Council of Ireland is in the process of drafting a report which deals with court dress but has not yet finalised its deliberations. Those who oppose wigs and gowns for the judiciary may be comforted by the fact that court dress for the Irish judiciary is sober in comparison with the court dress of judges in our neighbouring island. There is certainly merit in retention of the judicial gown and the gown for advocate lawyers; the wig is another matter. Those readers who consider that judicial dress in Ireland never changed with the revolution in 1922 may be interested in details of the ceremonial court dress or daily court dress which judges use in England and Wales. A High Court judge in ceremonial dress wears knee breeches, hose and buckled shoes and bands worn in winter, beneath a scarlet cloth and fur mantle, and a full bottomed wig. A

Reference 1. Government Publications Sale Office, Sun Alliance House, Molesworth Street, Dublin 2, IRP3.20 plus IRP0.72p postage.

Family Law Bill, 1994

Feminine Gender to include Masculine Gender

The Family Law Bill, 1994 1 sponsored by the Minster for Equality and Law, Reform, became available in late February 1994. The main objects of the Bill are to enable the court to make financial, property and other ancillary orders following the granting of a decree of nullity of marriage and in cases where foreign decrees of divorce, nullity and legal separation are entitled to recog- nition in the State; to give the Circuit Court jurisdiction in respect of nullity proceedings; to restate the law, with amendments, on the powers of the court to make declarations in relation to the status of a person's marriage; to raise the minimum age for marriage to 18; provide for notice of marriage and to strengthen the general law on maintenance. The Bill implements many of the proposals contained in the White Paper on Marital Breakdown (September, 1992 PI. 9104). It takes into account recommendations contained in The Law of Nullity in Ireland published by the Office of the Attorney General in 1976; and it takes into account recommendations contained in the following reports of the Law Reform Commission - Report on the Age of Majority, the Age for Marriage and some Connected Subjects (LRC 5- 1983); Report on Jactitation of Marriage and Declarations of Status (LRC 6-1983); Report on Jurisdiction in Proceedings for Nullity of Marriage, Recognition of Foreign Nullity Decrees and the Hague Convention on the Celebration and Recognition of the Validity of Marriages (LRC 20-1985); Report of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Marital Breakdown (PI. 3074) and the Report of the Combat Poverty Agency on the Financial Consequences of Marital Breakdown.

The Interpretation (Amendment) Act, 1993, (No. 35 of 1993) provides that in every Act of the Oireachtas passed on or after December 22, 1993 and in every instrument made wholly or partly under any such Act, every word importing the feminine gender shall, unless the contrary intention appears, be construed as if it also imports the masculine gender. The 1993 Act is intended to facilitate the drafting of Bills and statutory instruments in the feminine gender where appropriate. The Interpretation Act, 1937 and the 1993 Act are to be construed as one and may be cited together as the Interpretation Acts, 1937 and 1993. US Justice Jerome Frank noted in The Cult of the Robe (1945) that judicial robes symbolised the notion that courts must preserve the ancient ways; that the past is sacred and change, impious. According to this notion, what has heretofore been done must be right; improvements and experi- mentation in novelties are always unwise; the populace must never profanely seek to modify inherited customs and institutions. He noted that "robe-ism" is still too much with us. Readers will recall that late last year the Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay of Clashfern and the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Taylor, announced that in the light of responses to their 1992 consultation Court Dress

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