The Gazette 1993

GAZETTE

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

É » %

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