GAZETTE
M
I
W
H
NOVEMBER 1993
Society's Courts Submission
Criticised
By Dr. Eamonn Hall
The main news story impacting on the
solicitors' profession during the
month of October, was the criticisms
by the President of the High Court,
(during an address to a Parchment
Ceremony in the Society) about the
joint Law Society/Bar Council
submission to the Minister for Justice
on the courts service.'
In a front-page article in the
Irish
Independent
of 23 October, 1993,
entitled "Guilty: top Judge gets tough
with greedy lawyers", the newspaper
reported that the President of the High
Court had made a hard-hitting attack
on the joint submission and that he
had accused the two bodies of
presenting an unfair and distorted
picture in relation to the hearing of
cases in the High Court. The article
also reported that the Judge had stated
that the proposal for an executive
agency under a director to manage the
courts service would be an
interference with judicial
independence. The article said that
Mr. Justice Liam Hamilton had
claimed that lawyers had opted to
bring actions in the High Court -
where legal fees were greater - when
they could have been settled at less
cost by the Circuit Court and that he
blamed his legal colleagues for
creating a logjam by flooding the
High Court with cases in advance of
new legislation that would have
increased the jurisdiction of the
Circuit Court. The editorial in the
Irish Independent
of the same
day reported on Mr. Justice
Hamilton's comments in a
supportive way.
The
Irish Times
on 23 October, 1993,
also reported on the criticisms by the
President of the High Court. The
report quoted the Director General of
the Law Society, Noel Ryan, saying
that the judge appeared to have
misunderstood what the Society was
saying about the proposed executive
u
É » %
g
The then Mr. Justice Liam Hamilton,
President of the High Court.
agency and that such an agency would
not interfere with the role of judges
but would concentrate on improving
facilities for the public. The
Irish
Times
article also quoted from the
address given by the President of the
Society, Raymond Monahan, in which
he had said that the proposed agency
would have no implications for
judicial independence. The article also
quoted Raymond Monahan criticising
the absence of a properly funded civil
legal aid scheme.
The
Evening Press
of 23 October,
1993, reported that a "war of words"
had broken out between lawyers and
one of the country's top judges. The
Chairman of the Bar Council, Frank
Clarke, SC, was quoted saying that,
by concentrating on the part of the
submission that dealt with personal
injury cases only, Judge Hamilton had
ignored the overall problem and he
pointed out that in the previous week
the Judge had been faced with a case
which had been postponed for the
third time because there had been no
judge available to hear it. A Law
Society spokesperson was quoted as
saying that Judge Hamilton had
isolated one aspect of the submission
which needed to be examined in its
entirety.
Legal Ombudsman
News items in the
Irish
Independent
of 15 October and the
Evening Herald
of the following day, reported that "a
row was looming" between solicitors'
representatives and the Department of
Justice over who would fund the
solicitors' "watchdog" to be appointed
under the new Solicitors Bill. The
reports claimed that the Minster of
State at the Department of Justice,
Willie O'Dea, had written to the Law
Society stating that the Society would
be responsible for bearing the cost of
the office.
Irish Farm Family Therapy
Group
A one-page article in the
Irish
Independent
of 19 October, entitled
"Bad Lawyers - the people are
fighting back" focused on the
activities of the Irish Farm Family
Therapy Group. The article reported
that the IFFTG claimed that it
represented some 3,000 people and
that it had received in excess of 800
complaints about solicitors since
January, 1993, and 560 of these were
to be presented in a block complaint
to the Law Society in the near future.
The article reported allegations by
Ted Cunningham, PRO of the IFFTG,
that at meetings in the Law Society
offices, solicitprs had admitted to
wrongdoings and that the Director
General of the Law Society had stated
that mistakes were made. The article
reported a Law Society spokesperson
rejecting the accusations by the
IFFTG and specifically denying that
the Director General of the Law
Society had ever made such a
statement. The spokesperson claimed
that the IFFTG had deliberately
misquoted to the media comments
made at meetings with the Society.
Barbara
Cahalane
339