The Gazette 1984

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INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY OF IRELAND GAZETTE
Vol. 78 No. 2 March 1984
In this issue . . .
Comment 35
European Communities (Units of Measurement
Regulations) 1983 37
Solicitors' Accounts Regulations/Approved
Banks 43
Preparation of Briefs in Personal Injury
Actions 45
Fraud — Duties of Liquidators and their
IBA Vienna Conference 47
Presentation of Parchments 51
Journalism Prize 53
Association Internationale des Jeunes
Avocats 53
Executive Editor: Mary Buckley
Editorial Board: Charles R. M. Meredith, Chairman
John F. Buckley
Gary Byrne
William Earley
Michael V. O'Mahony
Maxwell Sweeney
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Printing: Turner's Printing Co. Ltd., Longford
The views expressed in this publication, save where
other-wise indicated, are the views of the contributors
and not necessarily the views of the Council of the
Society.
The appearance of an advertisement in this publication
does not necessarily indicate approval by the Society for
the product or service advertised.
Published at Blackhall Place, Dublin 7.
Comment . . .
. . . A Court of Appeal?
WHILE increasing attention is being given to the
lengthening Court Lists in the High Court and
certain Circuit Courts and District Courts, the fact that
this overload of cases has not passed the Supreme Court
by appears to have been ignored. It is a natural corollary
to the increase in the number of Judges hearing cases in
the High Court and to the number of cases being tried in
the High Court that there should be an increase in the
number of appeals brought to the Supreme Court. On the
23rd January, the Legal Diary contained a list of 54 cases
for hearing in the Supreme Court. It must be assumed that
their inclusion in such a list indicated that they were cases
which the Supreme Court had a reasonable hope of
reaching in the Hilary Term. Even in this particularly long
Hilary Term, this would predicate a turnover of cases not
far short of one per day and, of course, does not allow for
any urgent matters which may have to be dealt with by the
Court. As there is only one Court Room available for the
Court and it cannot sit in less than Chambers of three, it is
clear that the amount of time which the Judges must
actually devote to the hearing of the cases must, in many
cases, only leave them with their supposed leisure time to
deal with the preliminary reading or consideration of
their judgments.
It has to be said, albeit it with some temerity, that the
Supreme Court, in manfully undertaking this heavy
workload, copes with it sometimes to the detriment of the
quality of its jurisprudence. It may be necessary for the
Judges, in order to deliver their judgments with
reasonable celerity, to lean more towards doing justice
between the parties and applying the law in the individual
case before them than in drawing together the threads of
lines of authority which have been quoted to them. In the
face of the fact that our Judges, unlike their counterparts
in many other jurisdictions, have no legal assistants to do
the donkey work of checking case references and must
necessarily do all their own research, it is perhaps not
surprising that from time to time judgments which have
been promptly delivered, to the satisfaction of at least one
of the litigating parties, may not always stand up to
detailed analysis in the absence of clear indications from
the Judges as to which particular lines of authority have
or have not been followed in any individual case.
Is it not right to consider whether there should
necessarily be an automatic right of appeal from all cases
originating in the High Court to the Supreme Court? Is
there not something to be said for interposing a Court of
Appeal between the High Court and the Supreme Court
in civil cases, as has already been done for criminal cases?
Is there not a strong argument for restrictine access to the
(continued on p. 47)
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