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The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society ot Ireland.
L1 UNE . 1926
idea underlying this Bill appears to be to
treat all the officers appointed under it as a
branch of the Civil Service, and to make the
members of the staff of the several offices
interchangeable.
To a limited extent the
Council agreed this might be practicable,
but in the case of some of the principal
officers we regarded it as essential for the
good working of the department that the
principal
officer
should
have
a
sound
knowledge of law, which would be evidenced
by his either having a professional qualifica–
tion or
by
service in the particular office for
a certain number of years.
In an especial
degree we think this applies to:
(1) the
office of the Registrar of the Chief Justice,
who is in future to have the control of minors
and lunatics ;
(2) the Examiner, who now
takes the place of the Chief Clerk of the late
Chancery Division :
and (3) the Principal
Probate Officer, and we submitted amend–
ments
accordingly
to
the Minister
for
Justice.
In company with the two Vice-
Presidents and our Secretary
I had an
interview with the Minister, and we strongly
urged on him the importance of this matter,
and pointed out that the work done by these
particular officers was largely of a judicial
nature that could only be properly and
efficiently done by a trained lawyer. Whilst
we had no desire that the present officers
filling these positions should be discharged,
we were anxious that in the case of a new
appointment the office of Examiner (formerly
Chief Clerk) should be filled by a Solici or of
not less than ten years' standing, or by a
person who had some years' experience in
the late Chancery Division and the new High
Court, and an amendment to that effect was
proposed in the Committee stage in the Dail.
This was similar to the qualification pre–
scribed for a Chief Clerk (whose work is now
taken over by the Examiner) under the
Chancery (Ireland) Act, 1867.
I regret that
this amendment has so far not been accepted
by the Minister, although he has agreed that
the office of Registrar to the Chief Justice
should be filled by a Barrister.
There were several other suggestions for
amending the Bill, and some of these were
accepted by the Minister.
I should like to
take this opportunity of thanking him for the
patient hearing which he gave our deputa–
tion, and I trust he will yet see his way to
accept the amendments which we suggested
and which we believe are of vital importance
if really efficient machinery is to be provided
for taking accounts and inquiries involving of
necessity nice points of law.
No Representation in the Senate.
Here, incidentally, I should like to call
attention to the fact that our profession,
carrying on as it does a great public service,
is greatly hampered in bringing useful con–
structive criticism on measures such as this,
which so intimately concern the administra–
tion of justice, in that it has no representa–
tive either in the Dail or in the Senate. The
Constitution provided that so far as possible
the several interests of the community should
be represented in the Senate. Art, Literature,
Science, Medicine,
the Bar, Commerce,
Agriculture and Labour, are all more or less
represented in the Senate. The Solicitors'
profession has not a single representative.
This is not as it should be, and we earnestly
hope that when next a Senator is to be
co-opted the claims of the profession and the
advantage of its representation will be fairly
considered.
Amendment of the Bankruptcy Laws.
The Council appointed Mr. Hayes, Mr.
Seddall and myself as their representatives
at the Conference of the Chamber of Com–
merce, held
to consider amendments
in
Bankruptcy Law. We attended several
meetings of this Conference, and, no doubt,
you will have seen in the daily Press the
several amendments suggested, and which
have been forwarded
to the Minister for
Justice and the Minister for Industry and
Commerce. The principal amendment in the
recent suggestions is to make it possible to
have a binding agreement for a composition
with creditors without
the necessity of
obtaining the concurrence of every single one
of these creditors, the amendment providing
that a majority in number and three-fourths
in value shall bind the other creditors. Such
a provision is very necessary in small cases
where the costs of an arrangement through
the Courts would be prohibitive.