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GAZETTE
March 1976
EUROPEAN SECTION
Dublin Meeting of the Commission
Consultative
(November 1975)
by John G. Moloney
What is known familiarly as the Commission Consul-
tative and more formally as the Commission Consul-
tative des Barreaux des Pays de la Communauté Euro-
péenne is an offshoot of the Union Internationale
des Avocats (UIA) which met for the first time on 3rd
December 1960, and is composed of representatives of
the National Bars and Ordres of the countries
of the Common Market. It is composed of a
President and Secretary-General and three represen-
tatives from each country with three substitutes or
'suppléants" from each of the nine member countries
and observers from Sweden, Norway and Switzerland.
The present President is Maitre Albert Brunois of
Paris and the Secretary-General is Maitre Jean-Regnier
Thys of Brussels.
Up to recently the expenses of the Commission were
met by equal subscriptions of the Member States and
half that amount by Observer States but in November
1975 it was decided in Dublin that each Member State
would pay a flat 20,000 Belgian Francs and the Obser-
ver States 10,000 Belgian francs each with the balance
of the expenses divided into 105 parts of which Ger-
many, France, Italy and the U.K. pay 18 each, Belgium
and the Netherlands 10 each, Denmark and Ireland
6 each, Luxembourg 2 and the Observer States 3 each.
Meetings are held two or three times a year in
different countries and in addition there are a number
of meetings of a more or less permanent working com-
mittee and meetings of various ad hoc committees.
Each country names a person within that country
who will be responsible for the dissemination of infor-
mation to the various delegates and the sending of
information from that country to the Secretary-General.
The person in question is known as a Délégué aux
Relations and in the case of Ireland is Mr. James J.
I vers, the Director-General of the Society.
By arrangement with the General Council of the Bar
of Ireland the expenses of Ireland to the Commission
Consultative are shared and usually Ireland is repre-
sented at a meeting by one member nominated by the
Society and one by the Bar. Since 1973 the Law Society
nomination has been bestowed upon Mr. G. J.
Moloney, while the Bar, originally represented by Mr.
(now Mr. Justice) Thomas A. Doyle has sent Mr. John
D. Cooke to recent meetings.
The first meeting at which the Society was repre-
sented was at Bruges in October 1973 and since then,
there have been meetings at Paris in March 1974,
Rotterdam October 1974, Berlin April 1975, Dublin
November 1975 and the next two meetings are due to
take place in Stratford-upon-Avon in May 1976 and at
Perugia in October 1976.
The meeting of the Commission in Dublin was organ-
ised jointly by the Society and the Bar Council who
established a special committee for the purpose and
also a Ladies' Committee to run a special programme
for the wives of delegates attending. To judge by the
expressions of appreciation and thanks after the meet-
ing, the social programme was completely successful.
It included a reception of delegates and wives by the
President at Aras an Uachtarán followed by a buffet
reception given by the Attorney-General in Iveagh
House, the splendid reception rooms of the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, which was attended by the members
of the Commission Consultative and by Ministers and
Judges. On the following night there was a reception
and dinner given jointly by the Bar and the Society
in the magnificent dining hall of the King's Inn.
During the day the ladies attended a fashion show
and went on a bus tour through south County Dublin
and County Wicklow. On the Saturday and Sunday a
number of delegates and their wives accompanied by
Mr. Geoffrey Coyle went by bus through Limerick,
where they stopped for tea, to dinner and to spend the
night at the Aghadoe Heights Hotel in Killarney fol-
lowed by a tour the following day of the Ring of Kerry-
finishing up at Acton's Hotel in Kinsale where they
were joined by the President and Vice-President and
two other members of the Council of the Southern Law
Association. They then left by air from Cork the
following morning.
Ireland was represented at the meeting in Dublin by-
Messrs Moloney, Jermyn, Fish, Blaney and Cooke while
twenty-three delegates turned up from the eight other
member countries and in addition there was an obser-
ver each from Switzerland, Norway and Sweden and
Mr. Stanley Crossick represented the UIA. Mr. Colum
Gavan Duffy was specially allowed as Editor of the
Gazette,
to attend the meetings. The conference was
held in the Shelbourne Hotel for two and a half days.
The full agenda included a meeting of the Working
Committee, a welcome to Ireland by the President,
Mr. Osborne, an address by the President of the Com-
mission Consultative on the occasion of the fifteenth
anniversary, discussions on the subscription and budget
for the coming year, the problem of youth, legal
defence insurance, the election of President, a resume
by Me. Ehlers of Denmark in relation to Notaries, EEC
Criminal Law and the following two subjects which
were dealt with in more depth and at greater length.
1. Deontology
The first of these was a Report on Deontology by
Mr. David Edward a Scottish QC. One of the matters
which receives considerable attention from the Com-
mission Consultative is what is known generally on the
Continent as Deontology which comes from a Greek
word meaning obligation. It seems to cover what is
known in Ireland both as ethics and etiquette and gives
rise to considerable problems from time to time. It is
likely in the future, as contact between lawyers within
the EEC increases, to give further difficulty unless it
can be dealt with and regulated properly. Mr. Edward's
Report has been the first examination in depth in the
Commission Consultative and he found that to a very
large extent the basic principles are similar in all coun-
tries, although there are considerable differences, some
of them of considerable importance, in some aspects.
He had thought as a first step that the Resolutions
which he proposed in his Report ought to be passed
and that other aspects of the problem should be left
for further study. This was, in fact, agreed to at Dublin
and the Resolutions, which were passed, will he pub-
lished subsequently.
2. Draft Directive on Freedom to Provide Services
One of the reasons for the coming into being of
Commission Consultative was Article 55 of the Treaty
of Rome. Since then, of course, there have been the
developments of the draft Directive and the two deci-
sions of the European Court at Luxembourg concerning
Reyners and van Binsbergen.
The draft Directive and
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