The Gazette 1972

and happen to foresee the problems which will arise.

Moreover especially from the legal point of view, the

institution appears to portend a very special function.

This is due to the dual nature of legal personality,

with all its subsequent rights and liabilities, which is

granted by the legislator as much to the professional

company as to its members acting individually in their

professional dealings.

Such a somewhat ambiguous and complex situation

might possibly involve serious problems, if the Associa-

tion has to submit, independently from its associates,

though in fact through their own activities, to all

obligations imposed on the profession, in particular to

all its liabilities and penalties. Thus the association can

be brought to trial and forced to dissolve itself on

account of the misconduct of a single unfair partner.

Therefore, the most serious care must be taken by

the founders with regard to the choice of associates if

they want to avoid later, many drastic problems which

give rise to difficulties in hampering the essential spirit

of co-operation which is the basis of the relationship

duly established as much amongst the partners them-

selves as amongst their clients.

Let us hope that the freedom granted by the law to

the founders as regards the drafting in a proper

manner of the articles of association as well as of the

memorandum, may often prevent the above mentioned

difficulties. Besides, it must be pointed out that ad-

herence to this legal status is entirely optional and

that the law recognises all forms of professional associa-

tions previously existing such as joint offices (Cabinets

Groupes) and Barristers Associations (Associations

d'Avocats) which are deprived of corporate status.

In conclusion, it seems that the Civil Professional

Association represents a successful effort to encourage

team work in legal matters as well as ease of accession

to a modern type of law practice, favoured actually

by the prospect of the recent reform of the lawyers pro-

fession in France and which will probably expand in

the future in the Common Market.

North: Let's have Concrete Proposals

—S.A.D.S.I. Inaugural

The responsibility of ensuring that this island would

not become a shambles rested not on the people of the

North but on the politicians of the Republic, British

Labour M.P., Mr. Kevin McNamara (Kingston and

Hull) told the inaugural meeting of the Solicitors'

Debating Society of Ireland in Dublin last night.

Mr. MacNamara, who was speaking to the motion,

"That the memory of the dead is an obstacle to the

progress of Ireland" (carried), said that the real

sufferers in the North were not the minority, much

as they had endured, but the Unionist working class

majority who had been stripped and left naked of their

position and status and told that they must share them.

Stripped of everything they believed in because their

leaders had let them down, they had turned to the

U.D.A., the Vanguard and Loyalist Workers Associa-

tion.

Referring to the proposed Referendum on Article 44

of the Constitution in the Republic Mr. MacNamara

commented : "Big cheese—smashing—a good liberal

gesture', but the Government in the Republic had to

put forward terms and conditions to the frightened

people in the North before there could be any question

of a united Ireland. The people in the North would

have to be assured that they would be able to retain

their dignity.

They in England had got to do what they could to

ensure that there was something for the people of the

North within a united Ireland but, above all, the

Republic must cease burying its head in the sand and

making pious gestures but come forward with concrete

proposals. This would achieve more than any Green

Paper or an additional battalion of British troops in the

North. A realistic statement from the Republic would

do more for a united Ireland than all the dead who had

gone before—both Orange and Green.

Mr. William Deeds, Conservative M.P. for Kent,

said that England had survived two world wars because

it had a sound constitutional Left in the British Labour

Party.

In Northern Ireland there had been no serious consti-

tutional Opposition over the last 50 years and the

subversive elements had been able to cause violent

revolution. Without a constitutional Left an unconsti-

tutional Left was apt to develop and that was precisely

what had happened in the North.

Mr. Bob Cooper, Northern Ireland Alliance Party,

said that in Wolfe Tone they had the glorification of a

blood sacrifice. There was nothing beautiful in the

violent deaths of young people being blown to pieces

but there was something beautiful in people living for

their country in reconciliation.

James Connolly had thrown away all he had worked

for because of a sectional interest. They should re-

member that Tone fought for the unification of Protes-

tant, Catholic and Dissenter and that Connolly fought

for the unification of the Protestant and Catholic work-

ing classes.

Mr. James W. O'Donovan, president, Incorporated

Law Society, who presided, said that for the past 50

years, the people in the Republic, as far as our separated

brethren in the North were concerned, had been blind,

deaf and dumb. It was about time we did some con-

crete thinking south of the Border.

One student complained that the Society had failed

to protest against internment and Special Courts in

the North and had not given its moral support to the

minority in the North by raising its voice against the

Compton Report.

Mr. Henry Kelly,

The Irish Times

correspondent in

Belfast, also spoke.

Irish Independent,

26/10/1972

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