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.

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

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, >

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

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 <>

any point of foreign law. The right to establish an office

abroad either alone or in partnership with a local

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