The Gazette 1987

GAZETTE

JULY/

UGUST

1987

tion, preferably in the form of a

draft Civil Evidence Bill, the

valuable work already done by

the Commission in this area

and have produced a detailed

d i scuss i on paper on certain

technical aspects of the law of

evidence which has also been

circulated on a limited basis.

As to conveyancing, there has

been no overall review of land or

conveyancing law in Ireland in this

century. The Working Group of

specialists who are assisting the

Commission in this area have wise-

ly refrained from attempting any

massive overhaul of the law in the

short term, but instead have

already isolated a number of

specific anomalies where legisla-

tion can be relatively straight-

forward and uncontroversial, and

where substantial advantages can

be reaped in terms of savings both

of time and expense.

In considering what changes

might be necessary to produce a

long term programme of law

reform relevant to contemporary

needs, it is inevitable that the

reform of family law will loom

large. That need was already ap-

parent when the first programme

of law reform was adopted in

1976, since there was included in

it a number of aspects of

family law. No less than eleven

reports were published by the

Commission dealing with various

aspects of family law and, in

addition, their reports recom-

mended the accession by the State

to a number of important con-

ventions prepared by the Hague

Conference on Private International

Law. Of the many recommend-

ations contained in these various

reports, only three have been

implemented.

The members of the Commission

recognise that, while it is their role

to advise, it is the prerogative of

the Government and the Oireach-

tas to decide in areas of law

reform. But it would be taking an

unduly blinkered view of the wide-

ranging functions imposed by the

Oireachtas itself on the Law

Reform Commission to suppose

that its interest in a particular area

of law is exhausted once it has

published its report and recom-

mendations. The Commission itself

may have much to learn from

c r i t i c i sms advanced in the

Oireachtas of proposals which it

has made and from the reasons

given f r om time to time by

Ministers for not seeking the imple-

mentation of Commission recom-

mendations. Equally, for its part,

the Commission would be failing in

its duty if it did not draw the atten-

tion of the public, as indeed it has

already done in its annual reports,

to the extent to which its recom-

mendations have not been imple-

mented. The Commission would

also be failing in its statutory

obligation to keep the law under

review if it did not constantly

monitor the progress of its recom-

mendations, ascertain where it can

the reasons for their not being

implemented and draw the atten-

tion of the public specifically to

those areas where, in its judgment,

implementation is most urgently re-

quired.

All this, of course, is not to sug-

gest that the Commission regards

its work in the area of family law

as now confined to monitoring the

implementation of recommenda-

tions already made. The Commis-

sion has yet to make its

recommendations as to the best

type of judicial or Court structure

or structures appropriate to deal

with the different matters falling

under the general heading of fami-

ly law. It was already apparent to

us that this is an aspect of the

whole subject which is causing the

gravest concern to those concern-

ed with family law in all its aspects.

We are conscious of the fact that

in the general area of family law

there is a serious imbalance bet-

ween reports and recommen-

dations on the one hand and

legislative activity or executive

action on the other. I have already

drawn attention to the wide range

of Commission recommendations

which remain unimplemented. But

over this whole field, there are

reports from other agencies, some

of them in the public domain for

many years, many of whose

recommendations for legal change

have yet to be implemented. Of

these, it is only necessary to men-

tion the Report of the Joint Com-

mittee of the Oireachtas on

Marriage Breakdown, the Report of

the Commission on the Status of

Women, the Report of the Review

Committee on Adoption Services,

the Kennedy Report on Refor-

matory and Industrial School

Systems and the final Report of the

DOCUMENT

EXAMINATION

LEGAL AID

CASES

UNDERTAKEN

M. Ansell, M.A.,

9 8 T h e B r o a dwa y,

H e me Ba y,

Kent C T 6 8 E Y ,

En g l and

Tel. (03 02273) 67929 (24 Hours)

Task Force on Child Care Services.

This is a disquietingly lengthy list

and it suggests strongly that, while

there has been much activity in the

reporting field, motivated by a

strong sense of the urgent need to

reform the law and exhibiting a

wealth of ideas and an abundance

of good intentions, many of the

specific proposals for reform are

not being actively pursued. On the

other hand, the Commission ack-

nowledges that many others are in

the nature of outline proposals

only and require much research and

examination before being con-

sidered as subjects for legislation.

It is the Commission's intention

in the near future to publish a short

Discussion Paper tentatively entitl-

Strategies for Reform in Family

Law

which will summarise the pre-

sent state of affairs and suggest

possible ways forward. Already

preliminary soundings indicate that

the priority for reform is the ad-

ministration of justice in family cases.

The Commission are most anx-

ious to obtain the views of all in-

terested members of the public on

the topics which they will be ex-

amining from time to time so as to

ensure that the ever present danger

of law reform proposals being pro-

duced in a vacuum isolated from

reality can be avoided so far as is

humanly possible. It would be most

interested to receive from any

members of the public views they

may have or facts that they may

wish to bring to the Commission's

attention on any of these topics.

(Contd. on p. 135)

134