The Gazette 1972

Ordinary General Meeting -President's Speech An Ordinary General Meeting was held in the Library, Solicitors Buildings, Four Courts, Dublin, on Thursday, the 18th May, 1972. The President took the chair at 2.30 p.m.

will be affected by these Community laws and regu'a- tions. This, indeed, is essential, if we are not to be left groping blindly in a muddle of conflicting laws and regulations. Meeting of Union Internationale des Avocats While I am on the subject of the E.E.C., it may be well if I referred to a very interesting series of debates which under the auspices of the Union Internarionale des Avocats took place recently in Portugal. The theme of these debates was the basis upon, the extent to, and the conditions under which a lawyer, properly oual'fied to practice law in one country, should be allowed to practice or establish a law office in another. In the great majority of cases, the right to engage in legal practice is not controlled by Law Societise or Bar Associations themselves but by National, State or even Provincial legislative bodies. It is thought that in the majority of cases the professional bodies concerned would be willing to secure an amendment of the Law in this respect on the grounds that such an amendment would be in the public interest. We. as members of the legal profession exist for the sole purpose of providing a legal service to the public. For centuries this service has been provided only within National boundaries or, indeed, in some cases, only within the Provincial a"ea of a State or the jurisdictional boundaries of a particular Court. To- morrow we are likely to be faced with an undoubted public demand for a wider legal service for which the contributory factors are ease of travel and communi- cation, the redistribution of wealth, and the rapid and expanding development of transnational and inter-state business. On-the-spot legal advice We cannot ignore the fact that members of the public to-day are increasingly in need of on-the-spot legal advice and representation in a variety of matters, not only in commercial undertakings but also in the buying and selling of property and personal injury cases. In facf, our clients nowadays require legal services abroad as well as at home for all kinds of civil and criminal matters. It is natural for a member of the public to prefer to get these legal services from his own personal lawyer or at least from a fellow National who speaks his own language and who is accustomed to giving legal advice to his own Nationals, and the Conference in Portugal set itself the very interesting question: Is there not a case in the interest of the public for removing the total ban in most countries upon the right of the lawyer to practice law in another country or, at least, > n liberalising the present restrictions? The Portugal Conference It is interesting to note that by a majority of 37 votes to 1 the Conference recommended that, subject to proper controls, a lawyer should be free to be consulted in a foreign country but, preferably, that he should advise only on his own native law and should, when necessary- obtain the assistance of a foreign lawyer to advise <> n any point of foreign law. The right to establish an office abroad either alone or in partnership with a local 162

The notice convening the meeting was by permission taken as read. The Secretary read the minutes of the Annual Meeting held on the 24th November, 1971 which were confirmed and signed by the President. The following members of the Society were unani- mously appointed as the scrutineers of the ballot for the election of the Council for the year 1972-73—Messrs. A. J. McDonald, B. P. McCormack, T. Jackson, R. J. Tierney, L. and F. Brannigan. The President then addressed the meeting as follows: Ladies and Gentlemen, European Community Law Since our annual meeting last November, Ireland has taken the vital step of deciding to join the European Economic Community and whatever our priorities as a Nation are or ought to be, there can be no doubt but that the priority of our Society is to establish without delay the effect that membership of the Community will have on our domestic laws. Every Practitioner in this country in a few short months from now should be in a position to be able to advise his clients to what extent the laws and regulations already extant in the Community affect the problems on which he is con- sulted. The Society has already purchased or has on order the Common Market Law Reports 1963/71, the Common Market Law Review covering the same period, the Annual Reports from 1967 to date and other E.E.C. publications all of which will be of assistance to our members, and with these in our possession any Prac- titioner faced with a problem involving Community laws or regulations will, at least, have readily at his disposal in our own Library the means of acquiring the answer to his problem. Starting with this month's issue of the Society's Gazette we are running a ser es of articles dealing with various aspects of the E.E.C. with particular emphasis on the effect that membership will have on the practice of the ordinary. Practitioner. In addition, the sub-committee dealmg with this matter has suggested that it would be helpful if the Society were to provide a series of lectures—by persons com- petent to rpeak on the subject—on the problems we are likely to meet in our daily practice and the knowledge we should acquire to enable us to deal with them. Such a series of lectures might be given in the Autumn here in Dublin or in some other centre more convenient to our colleagues practising outside the capital. But we cannot afford to be complacent about this subject. At the moment, when a client consults us on a particular prob- lem we either already know the answer or at least we know where to look for it, but few, if any, of us would be bold enough to claim that we know even where to start looking for the information needed to cope with some question involving Community laws or regulations. We are hoping that the special committee which the Government has set up will, before the end of the year, publish a list of the Statutes of our Oireachtas which