The Minister for Justice desires to make a statement in regard to the Court Officers Bill.
RULES OF COURT.
The Court Officers Bill, which we have just passed, cannot be signed, I think, until the 9th instant, and the Rules of Court under the Courts of Justice Act, 1924, cannot be formally made until the Bill is law and has been signed. I intend to make rules for the District Court, the Circuit Court, the High Court, and the Supreme Court as soon as possible after the 9th of this month, in the hope that I will be able to secure the necessary resolution of approval of both Houses before the adjournment.
Will the Minister say when he proposes to lay the Rules before the Dáil?
I am pointing out that the Bill will not be law until the 9th instant, and the Rules cannot be formally made before that date. I propose to circulate to Deputies and Senators the draft Rules received by me from the three Rule-making Committees, so that they may have an opportunity of considering them and, possibly, even discussing them next week. The formal resolution of approval ought not of course be passed until the Bill is law, and the Rules have been formally made, but I can and will circulate at once, so that they will be in the hands of Deputies to-morrow, the District Court, High Court and Supreme Court Rules. There will, perhaps, be a delay of a day or two about the Circuit Court Rules, because I have not yet received the absolutely final draft from the Rule-making Committee of that court. I would hope that on the basis that Deputies receive the District Court, High Court and Supreme Court Rules to-morrow, and the Circuit Court Rules soon after, that they may be discussed as the draft Rules which it is my intention to make after the Court Officers Bill has been signed.
I think the Minister is asking too much of us. I do not, of course, know how voluminous these Rules may be, but I anticipate that they are fairly voluminous, and as they are of the utmost importance to litigants and have been the subject of a good deal of inquiry and anxiety, I think we ought to have plenty of time to consider them. I have had communications from different parts of the country during the last six months in regard to the prospective Rules and what was feared to be embodied in them. It has been my intention all along to submit the Rules, or queries in respect to them, to people technically competent to examine these Rules to see whether they are defective in any way from the point of view of the public and poor litigants. The time suggested by the Minister for their consideration is not at all sufficient.
A week?
A week is not sufficient if we have to get anything like informed public opinion to bear on the Rules. Does the Minister propose to publish them in the newspapers?
That is almost involved in their circulation to Senators and Deputies.
It depends on how voluminous they may be, but the newspapers will only publish the outstanding portions, those which happen to strike them as being exceptional, and it seems to me that the public will require to examine them in detail before the Dáil is asked finally to ratify them.
I appreciate the Deputy's point of view. I want, however, to put it to him that we seem to be in something of a dilemma, as having to choose between evils. I hope that we will choose with a just appreciation of their relative proportions. It is really a question of passing these Rules before we adjourn, or leaving three sets of courts without rules until, say, February or March of next year, at the earliest. I have had considerable complaints from litigants and their solicitors during recent months with regard to the dislocation and inconvenience caused by the absence of the Rules of Court under the Courts of Justice Act. Deputies are aware of the reason for that delay. I could not introduce Rules for the approval of the Dáil until the Court Officers Bill, which we have just passed, became law. I can now introduce them, and I am suggesting that a week's consideration should enable a fair discussion of these Rules to take place, say, on Thursday or Friday of next week. The Rules must be approached as being simply tentative and provisional. There is nothing binding or permanent about them, and I anticipate that in many respects they will have to be altered as a result of our experience of their working and practice. They are put up practically unanimously by the three Committees representative of both branches of the legal profession and representative also of the general public. I think it is not asking too much to ask the Dáil to weigh what they may consider the evils of a consideration of these Rules after a brief interval, before the Oireachtas adjourns, or leaving the courts to carry on for a further period of six to eight months without Rules. I have no hesitation in declaring that the greater evil would be the absence of Rules for so long a period.
I am quite sure the Minister is full of a desire to see that the just and reasonable thing should be done in this matter. I suggest to him that the responsibility for the shortness of the time rests with the Executive, who had the direction of the course of business in the House. I do not think there is any reason why this Bill should not have been through the House a week ago in view of the frequent days on which the House was not meeting.
Surely the Deputy realises that it could not be before the House until it came back from the Seanad with the Seanad's amendments.
But it could have been before the Seanad earlier.
We are on a different matter entirely there.
I want to suggest to the Minister that there may be points of view regarding the Rules of Court which are not the point of view of the legal profession. I have been hoping, at any rate, that we would see in these Rules some evidence that litigation is going to be very much cheaper than it has been. I am going to look at these Rules anxiously with the object of finding out whether that is provided for, and I hope unless there is some provision of the kind that the Dáil will not agree to them. I fear that the number of days that are mentioned would not allow for the examination that is required for three separate sets of Rules, and a proper understanding of them being arrived at. The Minister speaks of the 9th July. That will allow a week from Friday. I do not know whether there is any hope in his mind that that will be the last meeting of the Dáil for the session. As things are going it does not appear to me that that is possible.
I was not thinking of that as the last day for the meeting of the Dáil.
The last meeting of the session.
Nor of the session, but what I was thinking of was that if the Rules were discussed here on Thursday or Friday of next week, that then at the last meeting for the session —the meeting that would be held for the purpose of considering amendments to Bills from the Seanad—a formal resolution could be passed with little if any discussion. In other words, a discussion could take place on the draft Rules and a formal resolution could be passed only when the Rules had in fact been formally made.
I think if it would not preclude a discussion on the last stage, if such a discussion were found necessary, that would meet my suggestion. If there is a possibility of ample time it might be a fortnight after receiving the Rules—if there is then a possibility of discussing them on the last stage a preliminary discussion would probably meet all the requirements. With that reservation I do not object.
Of course if there can be a discussion next week on the draft Rules, there would be an opportunity of consultation with the Committees or all or any of the Committees on the particular points, before the Rules were formally made. I simply want to remind the Deputy that under the Courts of Justice Act the duty is imposed on me to make Rules with the concurrence of the majority of the Rule-making Committee in respect of each court. If I cannot get the concurrence of the majority of a particular Committee, then I cannot make the Rules. So that compromise is imposed. The necessity for compromise is imposed. There is compromise by coercion. The Rules will not be possibly the Rules which I and my officials would regard as ideal, but they will be the Rules made with the concurrence of a majority of the Committee in each case—that is the High Court, the Supreme Court, the Circuit Court and the District Court. The Rules cannot be made otherwise. We have so enacted in our Courts of Justice Act.
But I think we have also enacted that the Rules cannot become valid and operative until they have been approved by the Dáil and Seanad.
Quite, but the result of this agreement is simply a deadlock.
The Minister put it up to us that a very short time will be allowed for the consideration of the Rules before they come before the Dáil for practically final discussion. I think the Minister and his Department may be complimented. As far as I can gather what is in the Rules or anything about the Rules is a most profound secret.
As far as any inquiries that I have made on the subject are concerned, nobody seems to have the haziest idea of what will be contained in the Rules. That being so, and recognising the fairly close examination that is required by all and sundry when the Rules come out, it does seem as if a week would be a very short time in which to consider them. On the other hand, I think it would be a catastrophe if we entered on the long period of the recess without having dealt with the Rules of Court. I suggest to the Minister that when fixing a date on which the Dáil will break up for the recess, consideration should be given to the fact that the Rules of Court are very important, particularly when it comes to a question of putting them into operation, and the Government should give us a little extra time in which to consider them, so that we can adequately criticise them.
May I take it the draft Rules will be circulated to-morrow?
The High Court Rules and District Court Rules will be ready to-morrow; there may be one or two days' delay in connection with the Circuit Court Rules, but they will follow soon after.