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GAZETTE
JUNE 1994
At the launch of Butterworth (Ireland) Companies Acts 1963-1990 were, l-r: the Hon. Mr.
Justice Declan Costello, who launched the book; Lyndon MacCann, the author; the Hon. Mr.
Justice Ronan Keane and Gerard Coakley, General Manager, Butterworth
Ireland.
Judge Keane observes that perhaps
that this was an ironic gesture on
someone's part: "The staggering
complexity of modern Irish company
law sometimes looks very like a
practical joke, given the relatively
small size of the irish economy."
All lawyers of our time could instantly
inform any person that an important
anchor of corporate legislation was
passed in 1963 - the
Companies Act,
1963.
The Act contains three hundred
and ninety nine sections, with thirteen
schedules. Practitioners may have
some difficulty, however, in remem-
bering all the subsequent legislation.
The 1963 Act was followed in the
1970s by the
European Communities
(Companies) Regulations, 1973
and the
Companies (Amendment) Act, 1977.
Then we had to comply with our
obligations under EC law. This
resulted in the
Companies Amendment
Acts 1983 and 1986,
the
European
Communities (Stock Exchange)
Regulations, 1984-1992,
the
European
Communities (Mergers and Divisions
of Companies) Regulations, 1987,
the
European Communities (European
Economic Interest Groupings)
Regulations, 1989
and the
European
Communities (Companies Group
Assets) Regulations, 1992
as well as
the
Companies Act, 1990.
Mr. MacCann describes the contents
of these pieces of legislation as
"turgid". He notes that the drafting is
"in technical and inaccessible
language" and that many provisions
"are at best bewildering and pose a
considerable intellectual challenge to
both lawyers and businessmen who try
to interpret, and thus to ensure
compliance with the law".
Mr. MacCann has produced a
comprehensive Irish company
legislation handbook which contains
in one volume all the
Companies Acts
from 1963 to 1990 and various
statutory instruments which are fully
consolidated and annotated. There are
detailed cross references and
extensive case law notes. Each section
also cross refers to relevant UK
companies legislation. A "how-to-
use" section guides the reader on how
to maximise the use of the work and
there is a detailed index.
196
Occasionally lawyers may consider
themselves adrift on the shark-infested
seas of corporate law. On those
occasions, the lawyer who seeks a
clear-sighted path and who is
endeavouring to avoid the
metaphorical sharks will benefit from
possessing a copy of Butterworth
Ireland's Companies Acts 1963-1990.
Dr. Eamonn G. Hall
Emmins on Sentencing
Second Edition by Martin Wasik,
Blackstone Press Limited, 1994,
404pp, £21.95stg, paperback.
Sentencing, like
Mr. Daniel
O 'Donnell,
arouses few reactions of
indifference.
Dr. Paul O'Mahony
in his
recent
Crime and Punishment in
Ireland
argues cogently that, whilst
public concern over increased urban
crime is justified and undeniable, a
degree of selectivity and distortion in
its depiction by some media and local
political sources has retarded much
debate to an emotional and pejorative
level. It is, accordingly, all the more
timely and valuable to have in Mr.
Martin Wasik's second edition of
Emmins on Sentencing
a substantial
and dispassionate account of the
relevant law and practice in England
and Wales; together with Dr.
O'Mahony's more broadly-based and
opinionated survey of the Irish
situation, the work provides an
invaluable summary of relevant
information for sentencers, lawyers and
all genuinely concerned with this topic.
The author's structured and
painstaking approach entails some
measure of overlapping and repetition,
his style rather equates with some of
the Home Office circulars quoted, and
the task might arguably have been
accomplished in less than its 400 odd
pages. Nonetheless, its virtues
appreciably outweigh any such
reservations. Of particular interest to
the rapidly changing Irish situation is
the discussion of the competing
jurisprudential justifications of
punishment for crime between the
reductivist or utilitarian approach and
the "just deserts" approach, which
latter has substantially prevailed in
England and Wales by virtue of the
Criminal Justice Acts of 1991 and
1993, and which, likewise, holds the
upper hand here, as reflected in the
Law Reform Commission's
Discussion Paper on Sentencing and
subsequent legislation. Further, in
consequence of the proliferation of
sentence appeals to the Criminal
Division of the Court of Appeal, both
from Crown Courts and certain
decisions of Magistrates' Courts and,
by virtue of the availability since 1988
of prosecution appeals of sentences
perceived to be unduly lenient
(recently also provided for here in
í broadly similar terms), a very
substantial corpus of sentencing case-
law has been developed by that Court.
In "guideline" decisions, such as
Aramah
as to sentencing in drug cases,