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GAZETTE
B O O K
R E V I E W S
Pictured at the launch of
The Licencing Acts 1833-1995
in Irish Distillers are Constance Cassidy,
author, and Minister for Justice, Nora Owen, TD, who was the special guest speaker at the launch.
The Licensing Acts 1833 to 1995
By Constance Cassidy. Publisher:
Round Hall Sweet & Maxwell. Price:
£150.00; 1001 pp; Year: 1996.
For years, the Licensing Laws have been a
nightmare for solicitors. They are so
complex that it has always been a major
source of concern to practitioners that an
error can prove so fundamental that the
consequences to the client as well as the
solicitor can be disastrous.
With the publication of her excellent text
book, Constance Cassidy has provided the
legal profession with a complete
comprehensive review of all current
legislation extensively cross referenced
with all known decided cases which
gives the hard-pressed practitioner an
immediate answer to any question
which might arise.
As such, this book is a must for any
solicitor's office which makes any
pretension to practice law in this area. The
text is written in a clear and lucid style and
the salient points are made in a manner
which is easy to follow and comprehend.
I was particularly taken by the chapter on
"Duties of the Solicitor" which gives every
practitioner a comprehensive check list of
the traps which are waiting for the un-
wary; by the extensive lists of precedents
which are so invaluable and which save
endless hours of research and drafting; and
by the table of offences under the
Licensing Acts with the sub-division as to
the penalties which can be imposed and
whether the offences constitute an endors-
able offence. The background research and
dedicated compilation of such an impress-
ive book is little short of staggering.
However, this falls into place when one
considers that the author is a daughter and
follows in the foot-steps of her
distinguished father, the late Judge John
Cassidy of the Western Circuit, who was
the expert in licensing laws in his time. By
the provision of this magnificent work, the
author is rapidly stepping into his
distinguished shoes.
Without question, this book is already the
authentic text book to which the current
legal profession and the future students of
the law will refer. The author has rendered
the legal profession a major service by its
production which has greatly enriched the
sources of knowledge available to barris-
ters and solicitors in this area. Well done!
Thomas D Shaw
•
Textbook on Jurisprudence,
Second Edition, 1996
By Hilaire McCoubrey and Nigel D
White, Blackstone Press, £15.95.
Jurisprudence is a word that stinks in the
nostrils of a practising barrister, so wrote
Albert V Dicey (1835-1922), a jurist and
barrister. Dicey had developed an expertise
in revenue cases. In fact, he appeared for
the Revenue in a complex case in his
eightieth year, despite his deafness which
had forced him to resign the Vinerian
Professorship four years earlier after a
tenure of 27 years.
But Dicey had remarkable intellectual
powers. The "stinking" remark must be
taken in the context of his advice to
students: "It is better to be flippant than
dull." Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in
his
Path of the law
(1897) noted that
jurisprudence was sometimes undervalued
"by the practical minded" - something of
an understatement. But the judge was
correct when he stated that jurisprudence is
simply law in its most general part. The
authors of this book write of law in the
context of broad rules and of the law's
most fundamental concepts.
This book provides a clear, user-friendly,
analysis of the major theories and
controversies of jurisprudence of our time.
It starts by examining the nature of
jurisprudence and then proceeds to outline
the contents, implications and problems of
the major legal theories. The second
edition has been expanded to include new
material on feminist legal theory, the
economic analysis of law and the concept
of injustice. Those interested in the study
of law will find in this book an abundance
of authoritative and readable information.
Dr Eamonn G Hall
•
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