The Gazette 1996

G A Z E T TE

JUNE 1996

V I E W P 0 I N T New Era for the Cour ts

The first Interim Report of the Working Group on a Courts Comm i s s i on has received a general w e l c ome. Its principal r e c omme nd a t i on is the establishment of an independent and permanent Courts S e r v i ce to mana ge a unified court s y s t em and that the Court S e r v i ce should be an a g e n cy of the State. A r e v i ew of the operation of our courts s y s t em was more than overdue. It is over 7 0 years since it was established and although there have been c h a n g es over the years, they have largely i n v o l v ed increases in jurisdiction of the District and Circuit Courts together with s ome mod e st though, in s ome c a s es important c h a n g es in procedures. The work d o ne in our courts has e x p a nd ed e xpon e n t i a l ly in the last 7 0 years putting e n o rmo us strain on the resources of all those i n v o l v ed in our courts but crucially on those i n v o l v ed in their administration. The Working Group described the organisation of the courts as a " c umb e r s ome, unw i e l dy and o u tmo d ed fabric" and as "a series of organisations wh i ch are not interconnected adequately and wh i ch are not appropriately linked to that wh i ch they are purporting to manage". The case for an independent Courts A g e n cy is p owe r f u l ly made in the pa g es of the Report. Such a g e n c i es are already in place in many C o mm on Law jurisdictions. The courts' staff and the legal p r o f e s s i on have done their best to make the s y s t em work, in so far as it is within their p ower to do so, but the build up of d e l a ys in various courts, carefully d o c ume n t ed in the Report s h o ws that the present administrative arrangements are incapable of

consider the question of Family Courts. Wh i le the recently published Report of the Law Re f o rm Comm i s s i on on this topic no doubt provides both a useful spur and the necessary raw materials for the consideration of this issue, it might have been thought that the next topic to be dealt with by the Working Group might be the structures of the courts t h ems e l v e s. Indeed this was hinted at in the Law Re f o rm Comm i s s i o n 's report wh en it c omme n t ed on the difficulty wh i ch it had in deciding whether certain remedies should be available at Circuit Court or District Court level. The case for a unified court in certain areas, such as Family Law should surely be e x ami n ed as a matter of priority. Other C ommon Law jurisdictions wh i le retaining a multi-level court s y s t em generally have established a single tier s y s t em for Family Law. This Report augurs well for the s u c c e ss of the Working Group and its further Reports will be eagerly awaited.

ensuring that c a s es are processed within a reasonable time scale. No doubt the Working Group will be considering the question of the introduction of "Case Mana g eme n t" whereby the advancement of c a s es towards a hearing will no longer be left e x c l u s i v e ly in the hands of the parties but will be supervised by the courts. The reservations wh i ch exist about this Report fall principally under two headings. The first, already adverted to by the President of the Law Society, is the significant over representation of the judiciary on the proposed board of the n ew Courts Service. We have the temerity to suggest that so long as Judges of the higher courts are drawn largely from the Bar this will not have g i v en such Judges any significant e xp e r i e n ce of mana g eme nt of any form of business other than their own practices. There must be a strong argument for much greater representation from the p r o f e s s i ons for it is the Barristers and Solicitors who are most acutely aware of the we a k n e s s es in the courts system. The s e c ond major concern is as to the speed with wh i ch these proposals may be implemented. The e xp e r i e n ce is not an encouraging one. A number of years have passed since it was announced that the Land Registry was g o i ng to be converted into an independent State a g e n cy but progress towards implementation s e ems to be extraordinarily slow. The courts, as is e v i d e n c ed from the waiting lists at various levels, cannot wait for a s l ow change.

(See photograph

on page

148).

Solicitors Confidential Helpl ine J U ST CALL 284 84 84

It is understood that the Working Group intends to proceed next to

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