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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
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.
It is understood that the Working
Group intends to proceed next to
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.
(See photograph
on page
148).
Solicitors
Confidential
Helpl ine
J U ST CALL
284 84 84
133