The Gazette 1993

GAZETTE

MWH

DECEMBER 1993

from which they are derived future

adjustments may be more readily

grasped.

There are currently six Adoption Acts

in force, the 1952 Act remaining the

principal one. Practitioners will find

part three of this book very useful as it

contains annotated Acts and Statutory

Instruments in force at 31 July, 1992.

This part of the book draws together

"live" statutory provisions and the

! most important related Statutory

Instruments. It does this by

; consolidating the entire body of

adoption legislation in to a working

version of the "Principal Act" while

Í appending both the Adoption Rules

! 1991 (SI 247/1991) and the Rules of

the Superior Courts (No. 1), 1991.

In summary this book is a useful

| addition to the practitioner's library. It

is written by an author who has a

| background of legal training with

social work experience. Part one of

this book whets but does not entirely

satisfy the appetite of the legal

practitioner while parts two and three

perform an invaluable service and are

| certainly of considerable benefit. As

acknowledged in the foreword, the

book draws together and sets out in a

clear form the Acts as amended.

| Rosemary Horgan

Gender and the Law in

Ireland

Edited by Alpha Connelly, Oak Tree

Press, Dublin, 1993, £14.95 Softback.

During August the Leaving Certificate

results were published and in

September, places in various third level

colleges were allocated to our bright

young students. I watched this with

great interest as I knew of four young

people who had sat the exam, two girls

and two boys. The girls got very good

results with very high points and the

boys also did well, but their points

were not quite as good. They have all

been allocated places in third level

education. However, it did give me

pause for thought as to where these

bright young teenagers will be in 25

years time.

The boys may very well be at the top

of their careers and fulfilled, but what

about the girls? They may be fulfilled,

but, if they are to pursue their careers,

; with the same success as the boys, will

it be in spite of the system rather than

because of it?

Oak Tree Press, Dublin, recently

published

Gender and The Law in

Ireland

which is edited by

Alpha

Connelly

and does to some extent deal

with the many reasons why these two

girls will not find their career path

easy.

The book contains a series of articles

on various aspects of the law and how

it affects women. There are eleven

articles, in all, and a foreword by The

Hon Ms Justice

Mella Carroll.

These

articles which are written by various

different women with an interest in

womens' affairs, include articles on the

Constitution by the editor

Alpha

Connelly,

the Legislative process by

Yvonne Galligan

, Labour Law by

Irene

Lynch,

Social Welfare Law by

Aileen

\ Donnelly,

Family Law by

Nuala

Jackson,

Criminal Law by

Caroline

! Fennell,

Censorship and the Media by

Mary Kelly

and Women in the Legal

Profession by the editor and

Betty

Hilliard.

! The article on the Constitution by

I Alpha Connelly illustrates that the

I Constitution has not kept pace with

social change, but then how could it; it

has not been revised except for certain

! specific amendments in 56 years. The

issues dealt with in that article are:

voting and elections, citizenship, jury

service, contraception, termination of

pregnancy, parenthood, responsibility

in criminal matters, employment,

property, taxation and social welfare.

The article opines that one of the

values to which Irish society

subscribes is that of equality of the

sexes but states that an examination of

"the Irish Constitution and of its

interpretation by the Irish Courts

shows that there is a mismash between

some of the provisions of the

Constitution and the attainment of that

goal". Reading the part of the article

which deals with the development of

the right to privacy in the Constitution

which in fact derives from the right to

contraception, it now seems hard to

imagine that a woman had to bring an

action as far as the Supreme Court to

have such a right vindicated. A famous

Irish solution to an Irish problem.

Another section of this chapter deals

with termination of pregnancy and

deals with the relatively topical cases

"X"

-v-

the Attorney General

and

the

Attorney General

-v-

Open Door

Counselling

and

Others.

I suppose one

sees another Irish solution to an Irish

problem in that the law has dealt with

the issue on the basis of "shall not limit

freedom to travel between this State

and another State". Part of this article

deals with jury service and it is now

hard to believe that even as late as the

mid 1970s, a woman was not

automatically called for jury service,

but had to apply to have her name

inserted on the jury list. Maybe we

have progressed.

Another interesting section on the

Constitution and Parenthood deals with

the evolution of cases in relation to

guardianship and the rights of

unmarried fathers. The conclusions of

this article point out the anomalies

which have arisen over the years in

that while womens' political rights to

vote and to stand for election are

guaranteed, the reality of the treatment

of women in relation to parenthood and

employment does make these rights

somewhat superfluous. The article

argues that the Constitution needs

amending and revamping.

In the chapter on Labour Law, Irene

Lynch deals with the drawbacks which

women have suffered in the world of

work and she blames particularly the

marriage bar in the Civil Service and

various attitudes of people towards

working women. She deals with the

history of employment legislation,

brought in in the 1970s to improve the

lot of workers and in particular women,

and deals in a very interesting way

with many of the cases that were

brought before the Employment

Appeals Tribunal and to Court in the

intervening years. However, her

conclusions are somewhat pessimistic

in that she feels that this legislation is

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