I move amendment No. 3:—
Before Section 4, but in Part I, to insert a new section as follows:—
All courts shall normally sit at 10 a.m. and shall, where the business so warrants, continue until 5 p.m. with a break for refreshment from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., but by agreement of the parties and, in the case of a criminal proceeding, with the consent of the accused, the court may sit after 5 p.m.
This covers somewhat more difficult ground. The purpose of the amendment is to provide that the courts will sit for longer hours and, therefore, so more work. Everyone knows that our High Court is at present cluttered up with work. Jury cases are in a scandalous state of arrear. Plaintiffs and litigants have been deprived of rights because their cases are not disposed of within a reasonable period. Possibly the present practice has carried over from feudal times. I did not have time to study far back enough to discover the beginning of all this, but the practice certainly goes back a long way to the days when judges sat at 11 o'clock in the morning, had a break of three-quarters of an hour or an hour for lunch and rose at 4 o'clock. Judges agreed to work four and a quarter or four hours a day for five days in the week. In modern times it is impossible for the business of the court to beexpeditiously dealt with when our courts sit for so few hours in the year.
The courts sit for only a few hours on four or five days a week and there are very long vacations. For two solid months, August and September, the courts are almost entirely closed down. There are other periods of vacation. That practice arose in times when the position of the judge was, to some extent, incidental. It was a break in the pleasures of the year, a break with hunting, fishing and shooting. These games, amusements and sports could not be interfered with too much and the sittings of the court were arranged accordingly.
Every practitioner knows that the business of the courts cannot be dealt with expeditiously while so few hours are worked by the judges. It would be interesting for the House to have figures from the Minister as to the annual number of hours our principal judges sit. It would come as a shock and a revelation to the general public.
I see no reason why our courts cannot start at 10 a.m. In that I am supported by many practitioners who function in the courts. There should be no reason why District Courts, in Dublin and the other cities and towns, should not start work at 10 a.m. and, with a reasonable break for lunch, continue until 5 p.m. Anyone who has any experience as a practitioner or as a yaryman in the High Court will find that a court scheduled to start at 11 a.m., will barely get down to business much before 12 o'clock. The court rises at 1 o'clock, having heard the opening addresses of counsel, and resumes at 2 or 2.15 p.m.; a few witnesses are examined and crossexamined and the court adjourns at 4 p.m.
If law was paid for by the State and practitioners were paid for by the State, perhaps it would not matter, but most of the litigation has to be paid for by the citizens. Under this system a case which might reasonably be expected to conclude in a day continues for a second day, doubling the costs on the unfortunate litigant who happens to be a party to the action
On that statement of the case every person, certainly every Deputy, would be expected to support longer hours for the courts but there are objections raised. It is significant, not only in regard to this particular measure or this particular reform that is advocated, but in regard to any reform wherever it may be that, once a reform is suggested, an amazing number of objections can be invented, objections that were not thought of when the original idea was adopted. In the old days there was a difficulty about getting to courts. Transport was slow. One had to depend on the old horse and car. In those days it was not unreasonable that the courts would sit at 11 a.m. Now we have the most rapid forms of transport. Motor cars can bring witnesses and other parties from many parts of the country in a very short time. Yet the idea is still advocated that some person who has to cycle ten miles to a district court could not reasonably be expected to be there before 11 a.m. He can be reasonably expected to be at his work, which involves cycling the same distance, at 8 a.m. I want to demolish in advance a few of the objections that will be raised to this reform. That is the first objection, which is a ridiculous objection, an invented objection.
The next objection is that, in regard to the High Court, solicitors would have tremendous difficulty in getting their witnesses to Dublin before 11 a.m. Everybody knows that the good solicitor and the bad solicitor has his witnesses in Dublin the night before the hearing of the action and that they are enjoying themselves in a hotel or some other place, as they are entitled to do, on the expenses that will be provided for them for attending court.
There is no question, except in the most unusual circumstances, of a witness having to travel to the High Court from the country on the morning of the trial. Generally speaking, as a matter of practice, there is a consultation the night before either in the consultation rooms at the court or at the senior counsel's residence, at which senior and junior counsel and solicitor and all the witnesses are present. The whole case is gone through perhapsuntil after midnight. They are all ready to start out on the case in the morning. If it is a State case, the consultation is in the State Solicitor's Office on the afternoon before the trial. There is no question, therefore, of witnesses travelling from the country to the court on the morning of the hearing. It may happen in an exceptional case but not very often. That is the second objection disposed of.
The third objection is that solicitors would object to it because they have not the post opened and studied at 10 o'clock in the morning. Perhaps that applies to some solicitors, but the busy solicitor, the active solicitor, has his post read and his letters dictated by a quarter past nine in the morning and is ready to be in court at 10 o'clock if he wants to be in court at 10 o'clock. The amazing thing is that the objection to starting at 10 o'clock does not come from solicitors who function in the court but come from solicitors who, perhaps, never put their foot inside the court door but operate entirely by counsel and send down one of their clerks to attend the counsel when the case comes off. The general objection comes, as I say, from solicitors who do not practise themselves physically in the court, so that there is not very much in that objection. Certainly, any solicitor who practises in the Dublin Courts would have no objection to starting at 10 o'clock in the morning. In fact, he wants a start to be made at 10 o'clock, particularly in the District Courts, because it gives him an opportunity of getting to all the different courts he has to get to in the day.
Another objection is that from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with an hour's break, would be six hours, and that six hours would be too long for a judge to stand the heavy strain of the court. Most people have to work longer than six hours in the day. The strain on some industrial workers who have to work much longer than six hours is, undoubtedly, a heavy strain. I have yet to learn that the strain of listening to a case is such a strain as will tire a judge in more than five and a half hours, so that that objection of the strain on the judge, particularly on ajudge who gets over two months' holiday in the summer, and extensive periods of holidays during the rest of the year, cannot be sustained. I often wonder what our judges would do if they were surgeons, in which case they would have a very heavy strain, or if they were Ministers, or if they occupied many other of the positions in our Civil Service or business or professional life. I do not think that a judge is any less seasoned timber than the occupants of other professional or business appointments, and I cannot see why he is not able to last a longer day than four and a half hours.
They will say that the strain of going beyond four and a half hours may result in injustice—injustice to the party or some of the parties before the judge. Injustice could hardly arise in that event, and anyway the lawyers or counsel or solicitors or advocates who are looking after the accused person in the case of a criminal trial are well able to look after that particular aspect for the accused person; so that there is nothing very much in that argument unless we are to take the line that our judges are to be specially pampered. I can see no reason for it.
Another argument advanced against it is that the judges, when the day's work is over, have got to consult authorities; they may have to go to libraries; they may have to look up their notes. We all have to do that. After a much longer day we have to consult authorities, we have to read cases, we have to search for the cases we want; whereas a judge has them all marked down for him by one side or the other, authorities are given, the books are available for him if he wants to read them. I see nothing wrong. Every person who does his work well in any sphere of life has got to burn the midnight oil, and if a judge has to burn the midnight oil now and again I do not think he can complain very much about it. This State will provide in abundance the midnight oil for him.
There may be other objections to the course advocated by the amendment. I will be glad to hear them, and I will be glad to make my commentsupon them, but I think that we ought to agree that in the interests of the people the court day should be somewhat longer than it is. I am not tied entirely to the hours I have in this amendment. I am not unreasonable, and I do not want to be unreasonable in regard to it, but I do think that it is most important that our courts should sit to the minute of the time they are expected to sit.
I think that there is tremendous inconvenience to practitioners and to litigants to find a court starting at 11 o'clock which should start at half past ten, to see a court start at half past 11 that should start at 11, and particularly here in the City of Dublin where practitioners have to do cases in a number of courts, all cases fixed for the same time. It is impossible to arrange one's work when you go into court and do not know in the name of God when the justice is going to come out. They are all due at, say, half past ten. They may come out at half past ten or they may not. One may arrange his business on the basis that a particular justice is punctual and will be out at half past ten, and that another may not be out until 11 o'clock, and find, having taken that chance, that the man who does not come out generally until 11 o'clock will be out at half past ten and that the man who generally comes out at half past ten is out only at 11 o'clock. It is absolutely unreasonable that we should have that state of affairs. There is no reason why the courts should not sit at the hour they are expected to sit; and in that respect I want to say from my experience that I find no grounds for objection to the High Court, the Supreme Court or the Circuit Court in regard to punctuality in sitting.
I think I have said enough to make a reasonable case for this particular amendment. If, by any chance, on any day a judge were to feel a particular strain because of a very technical case or something else before him, nobody would object if the case were adjourned sooner than the usual time. There would never be any trouble whatsoever in regard to it. Even if an advocate became ill or unfit to carryon with the strain of a particular court, it is quite possible that, on application, an adjournment to suit his convenience and to suit his health would be arranged.
We have advanced a good distance beyond the long hours of some of our famous criminal cases in Green Street. I am moving this amendment on principle. I shall be quite satisfied if the Minister says that he will have this particular amendment examined before the Report Stage and will bring in an amendment to which the House will agree.
The general public are anxious that our courts should do more work and, in the interest of the general public, I have brought forward this amendment.