270 / 324
in this State, but which have been abolished elsewhere as
unsuited to twentieth-century conditions.
Following the publication of the report of the
sub-committee in the daily press the following
leading articles appeared in the newspapers :
THE MAILED FIST.
Yesterday at the annual general meeting of the Incorporated
Law Society, its president read the report of a special com
mittee set up to deal with the Solicitors' Remuneration General
Order, 1957.
It appears that the Order in question was
made upon the application of the Law Society by a statutory
body at present consisting of the Chief Justice, the President
of the High Court, the Senior Ordinary Judge of the Supreme
Court, and the President of the Incorporated Law Society.
The Order, in effect, proposed to substitute for the present
detailed bill of costs furnished by a solicitor in non-contentious
work outside court a bulk fee of such amount as should be
fair and reasonable, based upon certain tests detailed in the
Order. The Order further reserved to the public two safe
guards stated to be peculiar to the solicitors' profession—
namely, the client's right to obtain free of charge from the
Law Society a certificate of the reasonableness or otherwise
of the charge, and the over-riding right to have the bill taxed
by the Taxing Master. The Order, when made, was laid
upon the table of both Houses of the Oireachtas, either of
which could within one month by motion upon notice
revoke it.
It was, in fact, revoked by the small majority of
two votes last week in the Senate upon a motion brought by
the Minister for Justice.
Quite apart from the rights and wrongs of this Order,
concern must be felt over the way in which the Minister
and his department dealt with the matter, as revealed by the
debate which took place in the Senate and by the report of
the Law Society.
It would be hard to conceive of any persons
better qualified
to deal with the question of solicitors'
remuneration than those named above, and it is quite incon
ceivable that they would make this or any other Order without
very careful consideration.
In his closing speech in the debate,
the Minister for Justice said : " We made it clear in our com
munication to the statutory body that if they wished to con
sider other ways and means, we would be prepared to give
sympathetic consideration to their views."
In other words,
if the statutory body care to make another Order upon terms
dictated by him and his department, then he will not oppose
it. This appears to be the kernel of the whole affair.
It
seems strange that any Minister or Department of State
should decline to discuss such a matter with a body like the
Law Society, which was obviously anxious to explain its case
and smooth out any difficulties that might have arisen.
It
was a matter of sufficient importance apparently for the
Taoiseach to intervene and himself arrange to receive repre
sentatives of the Law Society to discuss it.
It seems clear that the Taoiseach was reasonably satisfied
after hearing the society's representatives, that their case
should be further considered, for he then asked them to put
in writing certain undertakings they had given to him ver
bally. This was done, and, in the words of the Law Society
report, " they felt that the Government would accept the
undertakings." Apparently
they were wrong, for some
days later a notice of motion to disallow the Order—giving,
in fact, the barest possible notice—appeared on the Senate
order paper.
It is of interest that there is no member of the
solicitors' profession in the Senate, whereas there are solicitor
members of the Dail who could have made their society's
case.
In spite of this fact, every one of the eleven members
of the Senate who spoke—and they came from varied walks
of life—opposed the motion in no uncertain terms. They
protested most vigorously against the methods used by the
Minister to steam-roll, by the use of the Government majority,
the motion through the House, and against his failure to
produce for the information of the House the documents
relating to the matter. Not a single senator raised his voice
in favour of the motion.
In his closing speech the Minister
expressed his hope for a continuance of the good relations
existing between his department and the society, but by his
action in this matter he has treated not only the Law Society
but the Chief Justice and his colleagues with scant courtesy,
if not utter contempt—
(Irish Times,
22nd November, 1957.)
A WRONG DECISION
The Incorporated Law Society has issued an emphatic
but reasoned protest against the Government's decision to
procure the disallowance of the recent Order governing
solicitors' remuneration. The incident to which the protest
refers was, to say the least, somewhat disedifying.
In the first place, the Order which has been disallowed
was not an order made by the solicitors' body.
It was an
order made and approved by a statutory body which includes
the Chief Justice, the President of the High Court and another
Judge of the Supreme Court—men whose status is a sufficient
assurance that they had the interests of the public foremost
in their minds.
In the second place, it was an Order not
designed to increase the costs allowable to solicitors but to
introduce a simpler and more business-like method of deal
ing with costs in certain non-contentious business. Thirdly,
the Order has been disallowed at the behest of the Govern
ment by a minority vote of the Seanad on arguments which
were fallacious and erroneous.
It is difficult to lay all the blame on the Minister for Justice.
He is a layman and naturally must rely on the advice of his
permanent officials. The attitude of the permanent officials
may be gauged by the revelation now made by the Incor
porated Law Society. The Society sought an opportunity
of expressing its views through a deputation to the Minister.
One would have thought that such a request from such a
a responsible body would at once have been granted.
In
fact the Minister—again, no doubt, acting at the suggestion
of his officials—declined to receive the deputation.
The Minister cannot, however, be altogether absolved,
nor can the other members of the Government. Fair play
and ordinary courtesy would have at once prompted a readi
ness to receive the deputation and to hear and consider the
solicitors' views before a decision was taken. This course
was all the more desirable because the statutory body respon
sible for the Order, headed by the members of the judiciary,
could obviously not be involved in any public controversy.
The Government, acting through the Minister, preferred to
invoke a British Statute of 1881 to nullify the Order, to ignore
and not receive the views of one of our leading learned pro
fessions, and to act on the views of the officials of the Depart
ment who presumably advise the Minister on such matters.
The whole incident has been not only disedifying but
disturbing.
It is quite clear from the full official report of the
debate in the Seanad that even the minority vote which was
sufficient to secure the disallowance of the Order was obtained
if not by party directions certainly by arguments which were
untenable and based on a misunderstanding of the whole
situation. This is no way to treat the legal profession.
It is no way to treat the members of the judiciary and the
other members of the legal profession who give their services
in such matters to the public.
It is a disquieting indication
of the attitude of the officials, whoever they may be. And
it is not serving the interests of the public at large.
Steps
should be taken forthwith
to undo
this wrong.—
(Irish
Independent,
z3rd November, 1957.)