36 / 322
GAZETTE
JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 1984
BOOK REVIEW
Judgments of the Court of Criminal Appeal 1924-1978, by
Gerard L. Frewen, B.L., Dip. Eur., Law, Registrar of the
High Court (Dublin: The Incorporated Council of Law
Reporting for Ireland, 1982. 619pp. £37.50).
The introduction of the Criminal Legal Aid Act in 1962
and its subsequent implementation in 1965 did not then
make any great impact on the legal profession. By 1970
only a small number of solicitors were on the Legal Aid
panels and in some areas no solicitors were available for
legally aided criminal defence work.
Today the situation is fundamentally different.
Criminal practice forms a significant part of the work of
the legal profession while criminal trials and related
matters take up an increasing amount of court time.
There are a number of reasons for these changes. One is
the growth in crime. The report of the Commissioner of
An Garda Síochána on crime published in June, 1982,
noted that the number of indictable offences reported per
year had risen from 38,000 in 1972 to just under 90,000 in
1981.
A second reason more directly bearing on the
involvement of the legal profession was the decision of the
Supreme Court in
The State (Healy)
-v-
Donoghue
[1976]
I.R. 325, which made it obligatory on the courts to inform
accused persons of limited means of their right to legal
aid. A third reason is the increase in fees payable to
solicitors and barristers under the Act.
Unfortunately, the increased importance of criminal
practice has not been matched by any noticeable advance
in publications on criminal law. Mr. Frewen's work is,
therefore, particularly welcome. Part 1 is devoted to 75
judgments of the Court of Criminal Appeal which are
published for the first time. These represent one-third of
the unpublished reports of the Court and were chosen by
Mr. Frewen after consideration of all the unpublished
material. Practitioners need no longer suspect that
important judgments may still be lurking somewhere
among the files in the Office of the Court of Criminal
Appeal. No doubt the present and future Registrars of
that court will be grateful to Mr. Frewen!
Part 2 comprises judgments of the Court which have
already appeared in the Irish Reports. It is useful to have
these in one Volume. The detailed index will be of great
assistance to the Judiciary and practitioners and also
provides some help in relation to cross-reference.
While not a work that solicitors will regularly produce
in the District Court, a familiarity with these judgments
will greatly benefit solicitors in criminal practice. The
status of dock identification, identification where
witnesses have been shown photographs, identity
parades, aspects of the hearsay rule are all dealt with in
judgments reported in this book. These matters are
frequently relevant in District Court criminal trials.
The past 5 years have seen a number of major
judgments from the Court of Criminal Appeal. A
Supplement incorporating these judgments will go to
press shortly and is expected to be available by mid-1984.
Meanwhile, both Mr. Frewen and the Incorporated
Council of Law Reporting for Ireland are to be
congratulated for producing this excellent and much
needed book.
•
Garrett Sheehan
•phone!ecfo
35/36 Pearse Street,
Dublin 2, Ireland.
Telephone: 715954/893538
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SEE US AT STAND No. 246A
Books Received
Employment Appeals Decisions — 1979. Government
Publications Sale Office, Molesworth Street, Dublin 2
£2.47. (Prl. 1430)
The second volume in what is intended to be a series of
reports of important decisions by the Employment
Appeals Tribunal under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977
has been published by the Department of Labour. The
first volume covered cases heard by the Tribunal in 1977
and 1978 while the new volume covers 1979.
The decisions cover such points as what constitutes
conduct justifying dismissal, the requirements of natural
justice to be observed before deciding on dismissal and
whether dismissal ostensibly on the grounds of
redundancy was, in fact, the real reason.
The Minister for Labour commenting on the
publication, said that the response to the first volume had
shown there was wide public interest in the decisions of
the Tribunal under the Unfair Dismissals Act and that it
was intended to have this volume of leading cases up-
dated at regular intervals. •