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IRISH LAWYERS IN AUSTRALIA
THE following paragraphs,
taken
from a
letter
received by the Society from a solicitor in Sydney,
may be of interest:
" I am in communication with Messrs. Vincent
and Beatty about a property in Dublin and in
a letter I recently wrote I suggested that if they
knew of any young members of the profession
who were
thinking of trying
their fortunes
outside Ireland or England, they might consider
coming out here to Australia.
" We read in our papers that great numbers
of young people are finding life too hard or too
restricted for them in Europe and who are going
to newer lands.
Irishmen have always done
very well in the law in Australia, and in the early
days of New South Wales and Victoria they
were very prominent, especially
in Victoria.
The first four Chief Justices of Victoria, Stawell,
Higginbotham, Irvine and Madden were Irish–
men.
Irvine was a nephew of John Mitchel,
but in politics resembled Lord Halsbury more
than his famous relative.
Sir James Martin,
great in politics and in advocacy a Chief Justice
of New South Wales came from Co. Cork as
did Stawell and Madden.
These Irishmen all
enriched our life in every respect.
" It is true, of course, that these fertile streams
almost died out in the last forty years, but Mr.
C. V. Rooney, a Senior Crown Prosecutor, is
an Irishman and Mr. J. A. Meagher a solicitor
with a very large practice in the Courts was
at one time very prominent in Dublin.
" The Irishman's gift for advocacy, for argu–
ment, for making a case, finds full scope in
our courts and in our way of life, and Irishmen
of all classes, mainly on account of their fighting
records in our regiments in both World W^ars,
are very popular in Australia.
" I hasten to add that I am "not an immigration
officer, but I would be glad to refer any inquirer
to the proper authorities."
A notable omission from the names mentioned
by the Society's correspondent is
that of The
Rt. Hon. Sir Frank Gavan Duffy who was called
to
the
Bar
in Australia
and
subsequently
became Chief Justice of the Commonwealth. He
was a brother of Mr. Justice Gavan Duffy, President
of the High Court.
LENGTHY AFFIDAVITS
GAVAN DUFFY, P., in the High Court recently
referred to the practice of filing lengthy affidavits
in support of petitions. The case before him was
a petition under the Solicitors Act, and an affidavit
tad been filed repeating paragraph by paragraph
the terms of the petition. His Lordship observed
that the only authority for this practice appeared
to be derived from a case over a century old;
he was not, he said, aware of the attitude of the
Taxing Masters to the costs of such affidavits,
but the practice appeared to him an undesirable
one. There was no reason why an affidavit con–
taining no more than one or two paragraphs,
stating that the deponent had read the Petition
and that the matters therein stated were in all
respects true, should not be sufficient.
APPLICATION FOR DIRECTION
ON PLAINTIFF'S CASE
IN the GAZETTE for March, 1944, there was reference
to recent English cases laying down the practice
in the matter of an application to the judge by the
defendant for a direction in his favour on the
ground that the evidence for the plaintiff had not
made out a prima facie case for the relief sought.
The English practice is that the defendant on such
an application should be asked to elect either to
stand on his application and not to call any evidence,
or to go into evidence, and the judge will not rule
on the application for a direction until this election
is made.
Since these cases were reported there
seems to have been some doubt as to whether they
would be followed here. These doubts may have
been resolved by the opinion of the Supreme Court
in the case of Bradley
v.
Coras lompair Eireann,
as yet unreported.
It is understood that Maguire,
C.]. then President of the High Court stated
on the hearing before him that he would follow
the practice of the English Courts, and that Counsel
would be put to his election, on an application
for a direction on the ground of " no case," between
foregoing the right to call evidence and having
his application for a direction refused. This practice
is understood to have been disapproved of by the
Supreme Court (Murnaghan, O'Byrne and Black,
JJ. ;
Geoghegan, J., dissenting) and the opinion
was expressed that it would be undesirable to
depart from
the existing practice of the Irish
Courts on such applications.
The case was sent
back for retrial.
CALENDAR AND LAW
DIRECTORY, 1947
OWING to difficulties in the printing trade it is
unlikely that the Calendar will be available for
distribution until March.
The Council regret
this unavoidable delay and every effort is being
made to expedite publication.
Any member who
wishes to obtain a copy and who has not yet sent
in an order, is advised to do so immediately.
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