Employment Appeals Tribunal website

The Employment Appeals Tribunal has just launched a new website at
http://www.eatribunal.ie

It contains annual reports, claim forms, etc., but not the decisions of thetribunal. Those are still circulated by monthly e-mail in PDF to interested parties (contact the tribunal to be added to the mailing list.)

The press release regarding the launch of the website is at http://www.entemp.ie/press/2006/20060403.htm

Update in 2012:
The EAT website now includes the decisions of the Tribunal.
See http://www.eatribunal.ie/en/Determinations.aspx
(Decisions have been available for some years).

Forthcoming Events

A new list of forthcoming events has today (16 February 2006) been distributed to the Irish Law Updates list.

The full message is available at
http://www.ucc.ie/law/irishlaw/updates/no26_16feb2006.shtml

Examples:

Sat.18 Feb.'06: Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) Ireland Seminar - Trinity College, Dublin http://www.tcd.ie/Law/SLSSeminar.html
Fri.24 Feb.'06: Crimes Against Humanitarian Law: International Trials in Perspective - Trinity College Dublin
http://www.tcd.ie/iiis/pages/events/crimesconference.php
Wed.8 Mar.'06: The Criminalisation of Children and Young People - Institute of Criminology, UCD, Dublin
http://www.ucd.ie/criminol/
Mon.20 Mar.'06: Making constitutional and human rights relevant in practice: Working with the Irish Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights - Law Society Seminar, Blackhall Place, Dublin
http://www.irishlaw.org/events/lawsoc05-06.shtml
Sat.25 Mar.'06: Judicial Review - Bar Council Conference, Dublin http://www.lawlibrary.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=574
Wed.29 Mar.'06: "No Turning Back: New Labour and the Politics of Law and Order" - Queen's University Belfast
http://www.law.qub.ac.uk/events/homeevents.html
Fri.31 Mar.'06: Co-Ownership Agreements - Tipperary (Law Society Seminar) http://www.irishlaw.org/events/lawsoc05-06.shtml
Thu.-Fri.6-7 Apr.'06: 6-7 April 2006: 21st British and Irish Law, Education and Technology (BILETA) Annual Conference: Globalisation and Harmonisation in Technology Law, Malta http://events.um.edu.mt/bileta2006/
Fri.-Sun. 7-9 Apr.'06: Law in a Changing Ireland: Annual Conference of Irish Association of Law Teachers - Cork
http://www.ialt.org/
Thu.27 Apr.'06: Law and the Environment 2006: Fourth Annual Conference for Environmental Professionals - Faculty of Law, UCC, Cork http://www.ucc.ie/en/lawsite/eventsandnews/events/
Thu.27 Apr.'06: Fisheries in Ireland: Lessons from North America - Current Issues in Environmental Law Seminar Series, University of Limerick http://www.ul.ie/envirocom/Noticeboard.htm
Tue.9 May '06: Law Society Annual Family Conference, Dublin http://www.irishlaw.org/events/lawsoc05-06.shtml
Tue.23 May '06: Practical Aspects of Trade Mark Law and Litigation, Law Society Seminar, Blackhall Place, Dublin
http://www.irishlaw.org/events/lawsoc05-06.shtml
Thu.1 Jun.'06: Change in Criminal Justice Policy and Practice in Ireland - Faculty of Law, UCC, Cork
http://www.ucc.ie/en/lawsite/eventsandnews/events/
Thu.29 Jun.-Sat.1 Jul.'06: Social Justice in Practice - Association for Legal and Social Philosophy Conference - UCD, Dublin http://www.ucd.ie/alsp2006/

For the full message see
http://www.ucc.ie/law/irishlaw/updates/no26_16feb2006.shtml

Reform of Legal Costs announced

McDowell announces radical reform of legal costs system and establishment ofLegal Services Ombudsman

Press Release:

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr. Michael McDowell T.D., has announced that the Government have accepted the recommendations of the Legal Costs Working Group and that he will now take the necessary steps to implement them. He also announced plans for the establishment of a Legal Services Ombudsman.

Legal Costs Reform

The Legal Costs Working Group, which was chaired by Mr. Paul Haran, the former Secretary General of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, was established by the Minister in 2004 to look at ways of reducing civil legal costs. Speaking this evening before contributing to a debate in the Trinity College Historical Society on the motion "That regulation of the legal profession should be reformed", the Minister said "I intend to empower the consumer of legal services - the client - and give him or her the information they need to make informed choices. I intend to transform the way in which legal costs are determined and, where legal costs are disputed, how costs are to be assessed. I very much appreciate the painstaking work done by Paul Haran and his Group. The recommendations are wide-ranging and represent significant change in the manner in which legal costs are determined and assessed.

The recommendations span the operational, policy and legislative areas and it is clear that a great deal of preliminary work will be required before the new systems can be put in place. I am therefore pleased that the noted accountant and businessman, Mr. Desmond Miller FCA, has agreed to chair a team to work out an implementation plan and timescale."

Recommendations

The report recommends that costs guidelines should be based on an assessment of the amount and nature of work required to be done in a case. The "work done" principle is central to the Report's recommendations. Recovery of costs for "work agreed to be done but not done" will end. This will be achieved by the replacement of the existing taxation of costs system (by the "taxing masters") with a new regime which would comprise the establishment of:

a legal costs regulatory body to formulate recoverable cost guidelines based on an assessment of the amount of work reasonably required to be done in typical cases;
a written assessment process, based on the recoverable cost guidelines prescribed by the regulatory body, to be carried out by a Legal Costs Assessment Office where legal bills are disputed;
and an oral appeals process conducted by an Appeals Adjudicator.

The Group recommends that the solicitor's instructions fee be broken down into its component parts. A similar approach should also be adopted in relation to the counsel's brief fee. All fees should be itemised and it must be clear to the client what they are being charged, why they are being charged and the basis upon which they are being charged. Given the recommendation that costs should primarily be recoverable by reference to work done, the Group considers the almost universal practice whereby Junior Counsel is paid two thirds the rate of Senior Counsel is unacceptable and unfair given its arbitrary nature.

The Minister said it was also his intention to radically strengthen the law in relation to the charging of percentage deductions from awards by solicitors and barristers. "Once the new costs arrangements have been put inplace and have bedded into the legal system, the market for civil legal services will become more predictable, consistent and transparent to consumers. This transparency will also make it easier for consumers to recognise competitive prices for the services they require and facilitate access to the State's system of justice" he said.

Legal Services Ombudsman

The Minister also confirmed the Government have approved his plans to establish a Legal Services Ombudsman to strengthen the mechanisms for dealing with complaints against solicitors and barristers. The Ombudsman will oversee the handling by the Law Society and Bar Council of three classes of complaint against solicitors and barristers, namely -inadequate services, excessive fees and misconduct.

The Ombudsman's key functions will be:

to provide a forum of appeal for clients of solicitors and barristers who are dissatisfied with the outcome of a complaint made to the Law Society orBar Council;
an overseeing role by examining a selection of complaints files each year taken on a random basis;
monitoring access to the professions and reporting to the Minister and the Oireachtas on the adequacy of numbers admitted annually to each profession.

The Legal Services Ombudsman will effectively subsume the Law Society's existing office of Independent Adjudicator and carry out the same functions in respect of both solicitors and barristers. Provision for the Legal Services Ombudsman will be included in a Civil Law(Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill which is currently being drafted and is likely to be published in the spring with a view to enactment before the end of this year.

The Minister said that "Replacement of the Law Society's Adjudicator with a Legal Services Ombudsman will enhance transparency and accessibility and introduce proper accountability to the system. There is a clear public interest in ensuring a high level of confidence in how the professions regulate their affairs and the Ombudsman will contribute to this."

10 January 2006.

Notes for Editors

Existing Complaints information

In 2004 there were 1,103 admissible complaints to the Law Society of which 547 alleged misconduct, 481 alleged inadequate professional services and 75 related to alleged overcharging. Out of 730 completed complaints cases in 2004, 61 were upheld. The Independent Adjudicator reviewed 79 cases in 2004 at the request of complainants and also reviewed a randomly selected sample of a further 40 cases. There are over 6,700 practising solicitors at present. The average number of annual complaints received by the Bar Council is approximately 25. There are 1,540 practising barristers.

Biographical Note on Mr. Desmond Miller, F.C.A. Desmond Miller is a chartered accountant and a former partner in KPMG. He is a past President of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce and the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland. He is currently Chairman and Director of several public and private companies and is Chairman of the Waterford Institute ofTechnology Foundation.

The Report of the Legal Costs Working Group is available at
http://www.justice.ie Choose: Publications > Courts Policy
Alternatively, try http://tinyurl.com/9tfm8

More events

A large number of events have been added to the IrishLaw events page at
www.irishlaw.org/events/

Some examples:

Wed.-Thu. 21-22 Sep.'05: Criminal Justice Research, North and South - QUB, Belfast
Thu.22 Sep.'05: Special Areas of Conservation and Natural Heritage Sites - TCD Law School, Dublin
Wed.28 Sep.'05: Estates and Trusts: Recurring Tax Issues - Dublin
Fri.30 Sep.'05: Why Lawyers and Economists Should be Friends - Joint Irish Society for European Law / Competition Authority Conference - Dublin
OCTOBER 2005
Tue.4 Oct.'05: Discrimination in Goods And Services: Implications of the Equal Status Acts 2000-2004 - Law Society, Dublin
Wed.5 Oct.'05: The Cultural Roots of American Over-Incarceration in the 1980's and 1990's - UCD Institute of Criminology, Dublin
Thu.6 Oct.'05: Public Interest Law in Ireland - FLAC Seminar - Dublin
Wed.12 Oct.'05: Women’s Imprisonment in Northern Ireland: Reflections & Futures - Belfast
Sat.15 Oct.'05: Migrant Workers and Human Rights Law (Irish Human Rights Commission conference) - Dublin
Sat.15 Oct.'05: Freedom of Information Conference - TCD Law School, Dublin
Thu.20 Oct.'05: Teaching, Learning, Living Human Rights - Dublin Castle
Tue.-Wed. 15-16 Nov.'05: The Ongoing Development of a Genuine Single Market for Financial Services: The European Banking “Passport”, Pensions, Tax Harmonisation and Money Laundering - Academy of European Law conference, Dublin
Thu.17 Nov.'05: Can Human Rights Survive? The Crisis of Scarce Resources - Hamlyn Lecture by Professor Conor Gearty, QUB Law School, Belfast
Fri.2 Dec.'05: Guardianship: A New Structure for Vulnerable Adults - Law Reform Commission Annual Conference 2005 - Dublin
Thu. 8 Dec.'05: Data Protection in Ireland - Dublin
Fri. 9 Dec.'05: Freedom of Information in Ireland - Dublin
Fri.-Sat. 9-10 Dec.'05: International Conference on Economic Social and Cultural Rights - Dublin
2006

Update to Guide to Irish Law

I have updated the Guide to Irish Law and the new version is available on New York University law library's website at
http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Ireland.htm

Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction

http://www.dohc.ie/press/releases/2005/20050512.html

Tánaiste welcomes publication of the report of the Commission on AssistedHuman Reproduction12 May 2005

The Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Mary Harney TD, has beenpresented with the report of the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction, which was established in March 2000. The Government has referred the report to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children for consideration and has authorised its publication by the Commission. The Tánaiste in welcoming the report said: 'The issues examined by theCommission are clearly difficult and emotive for many people. Some of the issues it examined go to the core of our concepts of human dignity and personhood; however, the Commission approached its work from the standpoint that AHR is a positive development in reproductive medicine; it offers the possibility of parenthood to involuntarily infertile people. I am pleased that the best interests of the child born though AHR were fundamental in theCommission's priorities throughout its deliberations.' The Tánaiste added: 'It is not satisfactory that there is no statuary regulation in the area of assisted reproduction, but in advance of theGovernment framing such regulation, the Commission's report needs to be subjected to public and political consideration. Therefore to allow for this in the first instance the Government have referred the report to theOireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children to consider therecommendations of the Commission."
The Tánaiste paid tribute to the hard work and commitment of the Chairperson and members of the Commission in examining this difficult and controversial area. 'The Chairperson, Professor Dervilla Donnelly, Commission members and all those who participated in its work have given their invaluable expertise and time to produce this comprehensive report. I thank them for their dedication to the Commission's work.'

Full report:
http://www.dohc.ie/news/2005/cahr.html

Events added to events page

A number of new events have been added to the events page at
www.irishlaw.org/events/

Some examples:

Wed.-Thu. 6-7 Apr.'05: Annual Conference of British and Irish Law,
Education and Technology Association (BILETA) - Belfast
www.law.qub.ac.uk/bileta2005/

Thu.7 Apr.'05: State Aids and Taxation - Current Issues - Dublin
www.isel.ie/coming.htm

Sat.9 Apr.'05: Litigation Against Primary Schools: Strategies to Reduce the
Risk of Liability - TCD, Dublin
www.tcd.ie/Law/Primary2005.html

Thu.14 Apr.'05: Law and the Environment: A Conference for Environmental
Professionals - Faculty of Law, University College Cork
www.ucc.ie/law/events/

Mon.25-Wed.27 Apr.'05: Irish Data Protection Conferences - IIR Conferences
- Gresham Hotel, Dublin

• Mon.25 Apr.: Pre-Conference Workshop - 'Employees and Data Protection Compliance'
• Tue.26 Apr.: Conference - 'Data Protection in Ireland'
• Wed.27 Apr.: Post-Conference Workshop - 'Implementing the New Data
  Protection Regime'

Tue.26 Apr.'05: Refugee Law in the age of Globalisation - TCD, Dublin
www.isil.ie/eventR

Tue. 26 Apr.'05: Engendering Citizenship Debates: Migrant Women and
Reproduction in Ireland - QUB, Belfast
www.law.qub.ac.uk/events/homeevents.html

Fri.29 Apr.-Mon. 2 May'05: Burren Law School 2005 - Education -Empowerment
and the Law - A Contemporary & Brehon Perspective
www.burrenlawschool.org

For a full listing, see www.irishlaw.org/events/

LRC Consultation Papers on Trusts

The Law Reform Commission publishes two consultation papers on Wednesday
16th of February, a Consultation Paper on Trust Law - General Proposals
and a Consultation Paper on Charitable Trust Law - General Proposals. The
Consultation Paper on Trust Law - General Proposals will be launched by
the Honourable Mr Justice Brian McCracken of the Supreme Court. The Consultation
Paper on Charitable Trust Law - General Proposals will be launched by Mr
Noel Ahern TD, Minister of State at the Department of Community, Rural and
Gaeltacht Affairs with responsibility for the charities sector.
Full text of papers:
http://www.lawreform.ie/publications/consultpapers.htm


The Commission would be particularly interested to hear from any persons
or organisations with views on the reforms proposed in respect of either
trust law or charitable trust law. The closing date for submissions for
the Consultation Paper on Charitable Trust Law is 15th April 2005 , while
the closing date for submissions on the Consultation Paper on General Trust
Law is 29th April 2005 .

BAILII citations and hyperlinks to Sup Ct cases

A message from John Mee of UCC Law Department:

Dear all

In a previous email I mentioned that the Courts Service had agreed to adopt the BAILII (www.bailii.org) convention for vendor neutral citations of Irish cases and BAILII had agreed to renumber its Supreme Court cases for the years 2001 to 2004 (older cases are not affected). This renumbering has now been done and will require adjustments to be made by anyone who has set up hyperlinks to Supreme Court cases in the relevant years. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. It is BAILII's policy to keep the web addresses of cases fixed - it is only when a court comes around to adopting vendor neutral citations that a once-off adjustment is necessary.

You can find the new url for a Sup Ct case by using the search facility we have set up at www.ucc.ie/law/irlii/irliiindex/cnewcite.php
Alternatively, you can find the new url on BAILII itself, by going to www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IESC and finding the case alphabetically or by date.
The web address for each case is based on the IESC citation. For example, McG v F [2001] IESC 2 is at www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IESC/2001/2.html. The web addresses for all Sup Ct cases follow this pattern, ie www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IESC followed by the year of the citation followed by the number followed by ".html".
(Note that in a few instances BAILII has Sup Ct cases not on the Courts Service site. Such cases do not yet have an official vendor neutral citation and we have given them a number in a separate sequence beginning with 200 to indicate that the numbers are unofficial).

Yours sincerely

John Mee
Law Dept UCC

Vacancy - Research Assistant, Cork

Faculty of Law
University College Cork

Research Assistant

The Faculty of Law seeks applications for the post of Research Assistant to work on a six-month research project, entitled "Consumers in the ElectronicMarketplace: an examination of information based consumer protection in thecontext of distance selling over the Internet."
This research is funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Applicants are required to have studied law, preferably to Masters level. Successful applicants will work as part of a research team, with primaryresponsibility for the collection and analysis of empirical data. The post is available from February 2005.
Salary scale €27,261 - €34,015 p.a.
Application by way of CV, including the names of 2 referees, should be sent by post or e-mail to: Fidelma White, Faculty of Law, University College Cork, Ireland, or F.White@ucc.ie.
Applications must be received no later than 22nd December 2004 and interviews may be arranged.

Events Page Updated

I have added a number of new events to the IrishLaw Events page at
www.irishlaw.org/events/

These include:

Wed.27 Oct.'04: Implementing the New Data Protection Act: Practical
Implementation Day - Dublin
http://www.iir-conferences.com/dataprotectionireland/

Thu.28 Oct.'04: Data Protection in Ireland: Strategic, Legal and Compliance
Day - Dublin
http://www.iir-conferences.com/dataprotectionireland/

Sat.30 Oct.'04: Conference on Work/Life Balance - Irish Women Lawyers
Association - Dublin
http://www.iwla.ie/sem_worklife.html

NOVEMBER 2004

Mon.1 Nov.'04: Five Years of BAILII - London
http://www.bailii.org/bailii/five_years_of_free_law.html

Tue. 2 Nov.'04: What Can the Law Do About Spam? - Dublin
http://www.ucc.ie/law/irishlaw/events/spam2nov04.shtml

Wed.-Fri. 3-5 Nov.'04: Annual Conference of Irish Association for the Study
of Delinquency - Cavan
http://www.irishlaw.org/events/

Wed.3 Nov.'04: Sleepwalking into the Surveillance Society: CCTV Regulation
in Britain and Ireland - Belfast
http://www.law.qub.ac.uk/events/seminars.html

Thu.4 Nov.04: Public Procurement Law - Dublin
http://www.ucc.ie/law/irishlaw/events/lawsocsep-dec04.shtml

Tue.9 Nov.'04: Employment Law: Recent Developments - Law Faculty,
University College Cork
http://www.ucc.ie/law/events/

Fri. 12 Nov.'04: Judge Costa, Vice-President of European Court of Human
Rights - Brian Walsh Memorial Lecture - Irish Society for European Law,
Dublin
http://www.isel.ie/coming.htm

Wed.17 Nov.'04: The New Independent Garda Complaints Procedure: An Exercise
in Appearance over Substance - Belfast
http://www.law.qub.ac.uk/iccj/iccjseminar.html

Sat.20 Nov.'04: The Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004: Practical
Implications for Personal Injuries Litigation - Dublin
http://www.tcd.ie/Law/Conference.html

Sat.20 Nov.'04: Law Society CPD Conference - Dublin
http://www.ucc.ie/law/irishlaw/events/lawsocsep-dec04.shtml

Wed.24 Nov.04: Gender, The Acquis and Beyond: Gender in the Accession
Process of the EU - Belfast
http://www.law.qub.ac.uk/events/seminars.html

Fri.26 Nov.'04: The Civil Liability and Courts Act - Dublin
http://www.tcd.ie/Law/Conference.html

Sat.27 Nov.04: New Developments in Probate and Succession: Implications
for Legal Practitioners - Dublin
http://www.tcd.ie/Law/Conference.html

DECEMBER 2004

Wed. 1 Dec.'04: From the Streets to the Prison Cell and Back Again:
Homeless Offenders and the Criminal Justice System - Belfast
http://www.law.qub.ac.uk/iccj/iccjseminar.html

Thu. 2 Dec.'04: Protection of Minors' Succession Rights - Dublin
http://www.step.ie/events.html

Thu.2 Dec.'04: The Work of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board - Dublin
http://www.irishlaw.org/events/

Sat.4 Dec.'04: Local Authorities' New Legal Duties: Implications for
Practice - Dublin
http://www.tcd.ie/Law/Conference.html

Wed.8 Dec.'04: Age Discrimination and Children's Rights: (II) Legitimate
Differentiation? - Belfast
http://www.law.qub.ac.uk/events/seminars.html

2005

JANUARY 2005

Mon. 24 Jan.'05 (to be confirmed): The Supreme Court and Article 29's
"necessitated" formula - is it necessary any longer or needed more than ever
(thoughts on the implementation on EU Law in Ireland) - Dublin
http://www.isel.ie/coming.htm

Thu.27 Jan.'05: Medico-Legal Society Presidential Address - Dr Sheila
Willis, Director of the Forensic Science Laboratory - Dublin
http://www.irishlaw.org/events/

FEBRUARY 2005

Feb. 2005 (date to be confirmed): The Battle for the Skies - A
Transatlantic Common Aviation Union takes shape - Dublin
http://www.isel.ie/coming.htm

Wed.16 Feb.'05: Regulating Reproductive Technologies and Reproducing
Fatherhood - Belfast
http://www.law.qub.ac.uk/events/seminars.html

Thu.24 Feb.'05: Children, Medical Treatment and the Courts - Dublin
http://www.irishlaw.org/events/

MARCH 2005

Thu.31 Mar.'05: Whither Stem Cell Research? - Dublin
http://www.irishlaw.org/events/

APRIL 2005

Wed.-Thu. 6-7 Apr.'05: Annual Conference of British and Irish Law,
Education and Technology Association (BILETA) - Belfast
http://www.law.qub.ac.uk/bileta2005/

Wed.20 Apr.'05: The Law of Murder: Myth and Meaning - Belfast
http://www.law.qub.ac.uk/events/seminars.html

JUNE 2005

Fri.-Sun.10-12 Jun.'05: Gateways, Gatekeepers and Gatecrashers - Annual
Conference of British and irish Association of Law Librarians - Harrogate
http://www.biall.org

SEPTEMBER 2005

Tue.-Fri. 6-9 Sep.'05: Annual Conference of Society of Legal Scholars (SLS)
- Strathclyde, Scotland
http://www.legalscholars.ac.uk/text/conference/strathclyde.cfm

Mental Health Tribunal members sought

The Mental Health Commission has advertised for Mental Health Tribunal
members and so Ireland is moving closer to implementation of the review
procedures in the Mental Health Act 2001.

Ref.BS1 - Panels of Barristers / Solicitors
Ref. CP2 - Panels of Consultant Psychiatrists
Ref. LM3 - Panels of Lay Members
Ref. TC4 - Panels of Mental Health Tribunal Clerks

INDEPENDENT MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS

Ref. CPE5 - Panels of Consultant Psychiatrists

Advertisement in PDF format:
http://www.mhcirl.ie/docs/AdvertMHCTP.pdf

Frequently Asked Questions about the panels being established (in Microsoft
Word format):
http://www.mhcirl.ie/docs/faqs.doc

Information Packs and Online Application Forms:
http://intranet.rcsi.ie/mhc/

Closing Date - Wed. 13th October 2004

Forthcoming Irish legal events

I've added a large number of events for September - November 2004 to the listings at
www.irishlaw.org/events/
Some examples:
Sat.25 Sep.'04: Human Rights and Disability Discrimination - Galway
Fri.1 Oct.'04: Freedom of Information: Changing the Mindset - Dublin
Sat.2 Oct.'04: A Charter of Rights for the Island of Ireland - Law Faculty, University College Cork
Sat.16 Oct.'04: Schools, Education and the Law - Law Faculty, University College Cork
Sat.16 Oct.'04: European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003 Review and Human Rights in Committed Relationships - Dublin
Wed.27 Oct.'04: Implementing the New Data Protection Act: Practical Implementation Day - Dublin
Thu.28 Oct.'04: Data Protection in Ireland: Strategic, Legal and Compliance Day - Dublin

Conference on A Charter of Rights for the Island of Ireland

A major conference on A Charter of Rights for the Island of Ireland is being organised for Saturday 2 October 2004 at UCC, Cork, by my colleague Dr Ursula Kilkelly, with Professor Colin Harvey of the University of Leeds.
Details are available at www.ucc.ie/law/events/

Project to Reform Land and Conveyancing Law

Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform Press Release
http://www.justice.ie

McDowell announces major project to reform and modernise land law and conveyancing law

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr Michael McDowell, T.D., today announced details of a joint project being undertaken by his Department and the Law Reform Commission to radically reform and modernise land law and conveyancing law. The Minister made the announcement today following a meeting with Commissioner Rickard Clarke of the Law Reform Commission and Professor John Wylie who chairs the Commission's Land Law Working Group.

The project will repeal over 100 pre-1922 statutes - the earliest of which date back to the 13th century - and to replace them, where necessary, with a modern law of property that will meet the needs of the 21st century. It is intended that the project will:

* Simplify the law and improve its presentation, in order to make it easily understood and accessible for practitioners and the public alike.
* Update the law to accommodate changing social, demographic and economic needs, e.g. new forms of property ownership;
* Make the conveyancing of property easier and faster with a view to reducing costs and delays.

The Minister said that the programme includes three phases:

* The screening phase, already underway, during which existing legislation will be reviewed with a view to identifying statutes which can be repealed without replacement and those which need to be replaced with modern provisions. This phase is already well underway since the start of the year and very significant progress has already been made. This phase will culminate in publication by the Law Reform Commission of a Consultation Paper in October 2004 which will embody the results of the screening process and contain parameters for future reforms.
* The second phase features a Conference on 'Modernising Irish Land and Conveyancing Law' to be held on Thursday, 25 November 2004 at the O'Reilly Hall at UCD. The Conference, which will be addressed by international guest speakers, will study the reform proposals identified in the Consultation Paper as well as the ongoing modernisation of the Land Registry and preparations for e-conveyancing.. It will be open to all those with an interest in the reform of conveyancing and land law.
* The third phase will involve the drafting of a Bill (or Bills) to give effect to the proposals for reform. It is intended that drafts of the new legislation will be available as early as August 2005.

The Minister said that reform of the law in this area would represent a major contribution to the Government's Programme of Regulatory Reform as outlined in this year's White Paper 'Regulating Better' and would bring tangible benefits to businesses and members of the public alike.


29 June, 2004

Visit to Franklin Pierce Law Center

A picture taken at Franklin Pierce Law Center this week of Professor Bill Murphy and me:

'Real' IRA a proscribed organisation - NI Court of Appeal

The Northern Ireland Court of Appeal has ruled that the 'Real' IRA is a
proscribed organisation -
see R v Z [2004] NICA 23
available at

http://www.courtsni.gov.uk/en-GB/Judicial+Decisions/

News report:

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2004/06/30/story154887.html

New Cases from Europe and USA

I'm currently teaching part of a course on
Information Liberties
in Franklin Pierce Law Center, Concord, New Hampshire, USA.


Coincidentally enough, a number of significant cases have been made while I am here, which will be of interest to many Irish lawyers.


Three significant cases concerning terrorism were issued by the US Supreme Court, including Rasul v Bush.


The same court has also issued yet another decision concerning regulation of child pornography - Ashcroft v ACLU.


And the European Court of Human Rights has decided that Princess Caroline's privacy was breached by certain photographs -


Von Hannover v Germany (Microsoft Word format.)

Equality Tribunal annual report 2003

The Equality Tribunal has published its annual report for 2004.


The full PDF is here
.

(An Irish translation is also available.)

And the press release is here.


Some brief figures:

4,000 Discrimination claims referred to Tribunal in 5 years


* 21% INCREASE IN CASES DECIDED

* 61% RESOLUTION RATE IN CASES REFERRED TO MEDIATION

* EMPLOYMENT EQUALITY CLAIMS UP 20%

* EQUAL STATUS COMPLAINTS DROP BY 28%

Seminar on Literary Copyright

The Copyright Association of Ireland is organising a seminar on
literary copyright on Friday 2nd of July in Dublin.

For details see
www.cai.ie/new/seminars/