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JULY 1995
in the country in which it is to be
produced. For those who are not so
familiar, the Report supplies a step by
step description of the procedures
involved. Space does not permit of
the procedure being described in
this article.
The Report is concerned with the
abolition of legislation in the context of
the processes which are carried out by
the diplomatic or consular agents of the
country in which a foreign public
document has to be produced in order
to authenticate the signature of the
person who purports to verify the due
execution of the document on behalf of
the state from which it has emanated. In
the case of a foreign public document
executed in Ireland and intended for use
abroad, this is done by a member of the
consular staff acting on behalf of the
Secretary of the Department of Foreign
Affairs. The signature (and stamp) of
the Department is then verified (or
legalised) by an appropriate consular
officer at the embassy in Ireland (or, in
some cases, London) of the country in
which the document is to be produced
and acted upon. If Ireland should
decide to ratify the Convention, the
authentication of the due execution in
Ireland of a foreign public document
intended to be produced in and acted
upon in another state would be by
means of an apostille. Under the
Convention an apostille must be
applied by the "Competent Authority"
in the state who is nominated and
appointed for that purpose. The
signature and seal (or stamp) of the
Competent Authority to the apostille
certificate would be accepted without
further verification by the diplomatic or
consular agents of the foreign state.
There is much debate in the Report as
to who might be nominated as the
"Competent Authority" in Ireland and
whether there is a case for the
appointment of a number of persons or
bodies to act as such Authority. The
Commission concludes, and so
recommends, that there should be a sole
Competent Authority and that the
Department of Foreign Affairs would
be eminently suitable for such a role on
the basis of its long experience - going
back to the foundation of the State -
and its satisfactory performance of the
work which legislation involves. The
Report identifies the areas in certain
regulations and statutory instruments
including the Rules of the Superior
Courts in which amendments would
require to be made in order to
accommodate the apostille certificate in
lieu of legislation.
The Commission recommends that
Ireland should ratify the Hague
Convention of 5th October 1961 and
that one central Competent Authority
should be appointed for the purpose is
issuing, applying and recording
apostilles and, as previously stated,
that the Department of Foreign Affairs
should be appointed to that role. The
recommendations in the Report will, I
believe, be warmly welcomed by
various commercial, exporting and
legal interests including the Faculty of
Notaries Public in Ireland who, for
well over a decade, have campaigned
for Ireland to ratify the Convention.
Our many years of practice as a
lawyer, I have found that reports
published by the Law Reform
Commission provide a succinct, yet
comprehensive, review of the evolution
and development of the law on the
particular subject under review and its
current status. This invariably saved
me many hours of tedious and time-
consuming research. The Report
reviewed above supplies the reader
with all he or she will ever need to
know about the legislation of foreign
public documents and the advantages
which would be against if Ireland were
to introduce the apostille system as the
means of verifying the due execution
of such documents. I strongly
recommend the Report to lawyers and
notaries whose work involves them in
the preparation of or advising on
foreign public documents.
E. Rory O'Connor
Of fences Against the
Pe r son
by Peter Charleton, BL. Publisher:
Roundhall Press, 1992, 415pp,
hardback. £45.00 (hb), £25.00 (pb).
"Of f e n c es against the Person" was the
first volume in the Irish Criminal Law
Series, a series which "seeks to
provide a comprehensive account of
the entire body of criminal law in
force in this jurisdiction". Such a
series is long overdue. When I was a
student I resented having to rely on
foreign textbooks, supplemented by a
few photo-copied decisions of the
Irish Courts, when studying a system
of law that was developing
independently of its English
equivalent. The Irish Legislature often
slavishly follows English statutes
when enacting new legislation but our
judiciary has developed a more liberal
jurisprudence, due presumably to the
fundamental rights provisions of the
Constitution.
This book is extremely well
researched and states the law
clearly and fairly. Every practising
lawyer should have a copy for this
reason. However, even the academic
lawyer and student will find it
useful in that the author often engages
in a comparative survey of the
relevant law in other jurisdictions
and he is prepared to indicate
how the law could be changed to
bring it more into line with his
own views.
It is worth noting at this juncture that
the liberal jurisprudence in this
country does not always find favour
with the author. When referring to the
"Whelan
c a s e" on joint possession, in
which the accused were acquitted
because the Court could not be certain
that
all
of them were guilty, he is
quick to show how this particular
" p r ob l em" can be "rectified".
Similarly, he is not at all impressed
j with the
"MacEoin"
decision where
the Irish courts, in contradistinction to
all other common law jurisdictions,
have accepted a subjective test as
opposed to an objective test in
relation to provocation. Furthermore,
he is inclined to quote foreign
judgments to underpin his own view
o f the law as it is here - I would
caution that, unless the Irish courts
have effectively decided on a specific
point of law in a judgment, we cannot
be sure that they will necessarily
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