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GAZETTE
MWH
DECEMBER 1993
The Judge noted that the key to the
proper approach to the manner in
which interviews of applicants for
social welfare benefits should be
conducted was encapsulated in the
single word "sympathetically".
That
word denoted a sense of fellow-feeling.
The judge noted that the key to the
proper approach to the manner in which
interviews of applicants for permanent
accommodation as homeless persons
should be conducted was encapsulated
in the single word "sympathetically".
That word denoted a sense of fellow-
feeling. Cross-examination, hostile
questioning, adverse comment or
indication of a likely adverse decision
were all inappropriate postures.
The local authority should give the
applicant ample opportunity to have
present someone able to assist or
advise him or her, according to the
judge. Finally, he noted that in the
instant case the alchemy of a particular
interviewer, a particular interpreter
and a mode of questioning that did
little, if anything, to favour the
applicant had supplied the recipe of
unfairness.
These two decisions in the two
jurisdictions are to be welcomed. It
was open to the judges in both cases to
decide each case in another manner.
The judges in the
Garvan
case and the
judge in the
Tower Hamlets London
Borough Council
case were both
motivated by a sense of justice and
both avoided an ultra-legalistic
approach to the matter at issue.
Coffee Shops
This piece is thinly disguised as a brief
to readers who are interested in
developments in other States of the
European Union. The Dutch Justice
Minister,
Ernst Hirsch Ballin,
has
recently stated that he wishes to clamp
down on the sale of "soft" drugs to
foreigners in coffee shops. During the
debate on his 1994 budget, the
Minister told the Lower House of
Parliament that more and more coffee
enterprises have been set up in a
number of cities which have shown no
social responsibility whatever in
dealing with their customers. He noted
that this applied in particular to the
large influx of foreign customers. He
agreed with the Christian Democratic
Party that this trend has to be stopped.
A lawyer on business to a city in
Holland recently went into a coffee
shop to ask for coffee. He noted that
I somehow or other the coffee shop did
| not resemble a coffee shop in Ireland
j
in terms of the clientele. The Dutch
I Justice Minister has confirmed the
laywer's worst suspicions.
The Minister continued by stating that
if the number of coffee shops were
i reduced and the managers of the
I remaining sections were asked at least
to refrain from selling "soft" drugs to a
wider clientele than their regular,
manageable group of customers, who
should moreover be of age, a stop
would be put to the current trend,
whereby the original objectives were
being increasingly departed from. He
noted that drugs tourism would also be
checked as a result.
A lawyer on business to a city in
Holland recently went in to a coffee
shop to ask for coffee. He noted that
somehow or other the coffee shop did
not resemble a coffee shop in Ireland
in terms of the clientele. The Dutch
Justice Minister has confirmed the
lawyer's worst suspicions.
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384