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GAZETTE
M E D 1 A W A T C H
NOVEMBER 1995
After Bloomer - The Exemptions for
Law Graduates Issue
The Judgment
The Judgment in the case of Bloomer
& Ors v The Law Society, Ireland and
the A.G. (a case note of which was
published in the October
Gazette
) was
reported in the national newspapers on
23 September 1995. It was reported in
the Irish Independent under the
heading 'Judge Decides All Students
Must Take Law Society Ex am'. The
article stated that legislation
exempting Irish University Law
Graduates from having to sit the
Entrance Exam of the Law Society of
Ireland had been struck down by the
High Court. It went on to say that the
ruling arising out of an action by
graduates of Queens University,
Belfast who had sóught a similar
exemption status on the grounds that
they had been discriminated against,
was handed down yesterday by Miss
Justice
Mary Laffoy.
The article
continued: "dismissing all the claims
of the 35 Belfast students, who had
sued the Law Society and the State
for damages, Judge Laffoy went
further and toppled the entire
exemption regime as it applied to all
graduates within the State. Miss
Justice Laffoy held that the Belfast
graduates had been discriminated
against under EU law. However, it
followed from her Judgment that the
legislation under which the
exemptions were granted was invalid.
I She found that Regulation 15 of the
Society Regulations was
ultra vires
I the powers of the Society
were invalid".
; In the Irish Times on 25 September
1995, an article was published under
the headline 'Students to Appeal
j
Exemption Judgment'. It stated that
I the Queens University Law Students
whose High Court action resulted last
weekend in the loss of exemption for
law graduates from the entrance
examination to the Law Society will
appeal the Judgment to the Supreme
Court. In the Irish Times on 6 October
1995, it was reported that a date of
December 12 had been provisionally
fixed for the Supreme Court appeal.
The Pat Kenny Show
On 18 October 1995,
Ken Murphy
was
interviewed on R TE Radio 1 by
Pat Kenny
along with
Loughlinn
Deegan,
President of UCD Students
Union. Loughlinn Deegan stated that
it was very understandable that law
students who got very high points to
get into law courses are annoyed that
they are not going to get the benefit of
exemptions into Blackhall Place to the
professional training course for
solicitors. He said that the students
want the Council of the Law Society
to make some kind of provision to
protect the admission of law students
who came into College on the
understanding that they would get the
exemption.
Pat Kenny
then turned to
the Director General,
Ken Murphy
for
his reaction to the High Court
Judgment.
Ken Murphy
said that the
Society had taken its stance in the
Bloomer case on the grounds of
educational standards. However, as a
result of the judgment, one of the
Society's Regulations was struck
down. The Director General
continued: "we are very conscious of
the difficulties facing people who
were in the system already and who
were not anticipating that this would
be the situation they would face. We
are trying to come up with a solution
! to it and we are taking further legal
! advice at the moment to determine
what is actually legally possible for
! us to do."
Pat Kenny
queried the
position of people who opted for
law on the basis that they would
have the exemption.
Ken Murphy
replied "well that is precisely the
difficulty we face. While we have
heard a great deal about the legal
principle of "legitimate expectation",
it is not something which is very
clear in its extent as applied to
circumstances like this. Whether it
; would go back even as far as the
people you describe, that is again
something about which we are
j awaiting definitive legal advice."
, Council Meeting - 20 October
A statement was issued by the Law
Society on 20 October 1995 as
follows "the Council of the Law
Society wish to express its deep
concern at the position in which
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