The Gazette 1980

GAZETTE

APRIL 1980

LAW REFORM — NOW!

—Continued from p. 49

conservative, the formal advertisements for submissions,

followed by the learned working paper, requests for

comments and, ultimately, the draft Bill. Perhaps the

example of the Australian Law Reform Commission,

where the Chairman appears on "talk-in" radio

programmes, would be too radical but the New South

Wales Commission practice of issuing pamphlets

containing brief summaries of the working papers, written

in laymans' language, might well be copied.

The approach of our Commission in its working papers

has been, in general too academic: while its papers are a

fascinating source of legal knowledge, they point in the

wrong direction — backwards. There is too much

emphasis on research into the state of the law here, which

is sometimes found to be uncertain and, while there is

useful comparative material, there is too little evidence of

a striving to decide what the Law should be.

The topics which the Commission have chosen for

themselves,with one exception, are narrow ones. Why

only "the law relating to the Domicile of Married

Women"? Why not examine the doctrine of domicile

itself, confusing to seven of our fellow EEC member

countries and a survival of an era when mobility of the

Population was unknown.

Other countries have recognised the slow progress

likely to be produced by Government Departments and

S.Y.S. Presentation

Mr. Terence Dixon (left) Chairman of the Society of

oung Solicitors, and Professor Richard Woulfe,

Director of Education, Incorporated Law Society of

Ireland, admiring one of a set of five bound volumes of

fhe lectures delivered to the S.Y.S. since April 1965. The

inscribed volumes were presented by the Society of

Young Solicitors to the Law School of the Incorporated

Law Society of Ireland at a pleasant ceremony at

Blackhall Place on the evening of March 31st 1980. In

addition to Mr. Dixon who made the presentation and to

Professor Woulfe who accepted it on behalf of the Law

School, the ceremony was attended by S'.Y.S. committee

Members, by Mr. James J. Ivers, Director General of the

LL.S.I. and by staff members of the Law School. The set

°f lectures has been placed in the library for the use of

students who were represented at the presentation by

Miss Emer Moriarty and Mr. John Hurley.

Law Reform Commissions entrusted with the drafting of

legislation and have tackled these problems by employing

experts, on contract, to tackle Law Reform subjects.

Some four years ago the Government of Trinidad and

Tobago commissioned Professor J. C. W. Wylie to

prepare draft legislation revising their Land Law,

Conveyancing Law, Registration of Title Law and

Planning Law. All this has now been done by Professor

Wylie and the legislation is currently going through the

houses of Parliament in Trinidad. He was given a free

hand to go out and meet all parties who might have an

interest in the reform of the Law, to discuss their

problems with them and then to draft the legislation. Our

need is perhaps not as great as that of Trinidad and

Tobago, but there are certainly wide areas of our Land

Law and Conveyancing Law which should be reformed.

Practitioners in other areas would not doubt argue that

reform is equally necessary there.

It seems clear that the rate of progress of the three

bodies entrusted with keeping our law up to date is not

sufficient. Perhaps the Law Reform Commission might

improve its productivity by adopting different methods

and selecting topics which might be dealt with more

rapidly than some of those already tackled.

It is suggested, however that the freelance expert may

prove not only a more effective, but a more efficient and,

indeed, a more economic achiever of Law Reform than

our present combination of bodies.

Incorporated Law Society of

Ireland

EXAMINATION TIMETABLE 1980

Closing date

Examination

Dates

for receipt

of entries

Repeat of Final Examination

— 1st Part

18-25 June

(inclusive)

2 June

8 and 9 July

12 June

Preliminary Examination

15 & 16 July

12 June

1st, 2nd & 3rd Law

13-25 August

(inclusive)

4 July

7 October

15 September

Ist and 2nd Irish

2 & 3 December

3 November

Final Examination — 1st Part (not Fixed)

Please note that this Notice corrects the Notice under the heading

"Examination Timetable" which appeared at page 41 of the

March, 1980 GAZETTE.

S.Y.S. Lecture Scripts

Orders for the Full Set of S.Y.S. Lecture Scripts, in 5 bound

volumes, price £191.60 (carriage extra) should be sent to:-

S.Y.S TRANSCRIPT SERVICE

C/o Mr. Normal Spendlove,

Solicitor

94, Grafton Street,

Dublin 2