Vol. 498 No. 2
3 Mr. Quinn asked the Taoiseach the proposals, if any, he has for the development of formal links and a system of joint study and reporting between the Law Reform Commission and its British counterparts concerned with updating and reform of the law, in particular, pre-independence law; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26522/98]
The Law Reform Commission enjoys excellent relations with all its British counterparts — namely, the Law Commission of England and Wales, the Scottish Law Commission and the Law Revision Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland.
The various law reform bodies take every opportunity to develop contact and maintain good relations. For instance, the Law Reform Commission was visited by the Chair of the Law Commission of England and Wales, Dame Justice Arden, in April last. In October the Review Group on the Northern Ireland Criminal Justice System met with the Law Reform Commission to discuss matters of law reform.
The links between the Law Reform Commission and its British counterparts are invariably informal in their nature. Statutory authority for such links exists under section 4 (3) of the Law Reform Commission Act, 1975, which enables the commission "to consult, on any particular matter which the Commission considers relevant, persons qualified to give opinions thereon." However, any system of joint reporting between the commission and its British, or indeed any other, counterparts would be an innovation which would probably require an amendment to the Irish Act and perhaps a corresponding amendment to the relevant statutes in other jurisdictions.
As regards the updating of pre-independence law, the work of the Law Reform Commission to date has frequently addressed various aspects of that law. Where the work of the Law Reform Commission has involved research into aspects of pre-independence law, as the need has arisen, it has profited from the published research of the Law Commission of England and Wales and of the Scottish Law Commission. It is considered that the best approach to the reform of pre-independence law is to address specific topics which bear, in whole or in part, on pre-independence law as subjects for law reform.
In the context of the British-Irish Agreement, there is a new mood abroad which would enable both jurisdictions to collaborate in the mutual modernisation of statute law which predates 1921-2. Best practice in both jurisdictions could be combined through the relevant law reform commissions to produce that.
I am not clear about the situation in the United Kingdom but I do know what the position is in the Republic of Ireland. I have been told by the Attorney General's office that we will be publishing all Irish statute law, with all statutory instruments, next week on CD-ROM, with a search and find index system which will enable people to find out their legal obligations post-1922 in a manner which was not previously possible. That facility does not exist for liability in relation to pre-independence legislation.
Notwithstanding the reform of pre-1922 legislation, is it not desirable that the British and Irish jurisdictions, which share a a common corpus of pre-1922 legislation, should move to put that into an electronic format which is accessible?
Would the Taoiseach request, within the framework of the British-Irish Agreement, that the Irish Law Reform Commission pursue that?
I do not know what volume of work would be involved.
About 300 years of law.
I know that in terms of the pre-independence work, the Law Reform Commission would be anxious for us to be specific if we asked it to look at that.
In terms of the CD-ROM, I have followed up the cost aspect. The Deputy made the sensible proposal that we should get a cost base. I have since found out that it is available on the Internet. It is cheap because otherwise people would simply pirate it and the commission would not gain.
The Taoiseach needs some good marketeers on his side of the House. He could have my cousin in the first instance.
I raised the question the Deputy is asking in regard to the possibility of doing that with the pre-1922 legislation and they are looking at it. I will raise the points the Deputy has made. Some people might say we do not use much of the pre-independence legislation but it arises every time a Bill is debated in this House. I am sure it is a difficult job and one in which co-operation would be useful.
I understand the British system is not as far advanced in this regard as we are, which is probably due to the sheer volume of British legislation. However, I will follow this up in terms of the pre-1922 legislation, at least, if not the statutory instruments — I understand there are tens of thousands of statutory instruments.
Will the Taoiseach turn his attention, in the context of this question which concerns co-operation between Britain and Ireland, to the proposals which have been published in Britain to reform the legal system there? It experiences the same problems as us, such as ever lengthening queues for legal aid, ever inflating legal fees and ever greater uncertainty about how a case will be decided, depending on which judge one happens to appear before.
There is a genuine sense that the system of justice has become a lottery for most people and it is a matter of luck, as much as anything else, whether one gets justice. Does the Taoiseach share my view that reform of the legal system is one of the most urgent tasks facing this country as it enters a new decade?
I think that is widening the question somewhat. I do not want to go down that road with Deputy Bruton in regard to access to our legal system, although I agree with him about the high costs of legal services. The Law Reform Commission has, over the past 23 or 24 years, done an enormous amount of work to assist in amending legislation, deal with new areas of legislation and keep focused on ensuring our criminal justice system is up to standard. I know there are difficulties in the system but I do not think we should overstate them.
Will the Taoiseach agree that one of the principal reasons for high legal fees is that the law is not simple? The more complicated we make the law, the more people will have to hire lawyers to explain it to them. One of the reasons for our costly legal system is that this House is not adequately doing its job to simplify the law. Will the Taoiseach agree that the complexity and cost of getting access to justice is a major political question which needs to be tackled in this House, if necessary on a crossparty basis, so that we will not just have the right laws but laws which are simple enough for people to use?
Simple, clear and concise legislation is certainly easier to interpret. However, we have seen in a number of cases this year and during this decade the ability of people to find ways which are not in legislation and new areas which they can pursue, which is causing the huge cost base.
The best way for this House to keep matters simple is to consolidate legislation, remove as much as possible of the old regulatory systems and focus on the present system. We have had an enormous amount of criminal justice legislation in the past few years and I would like to think that has dealt with matters. However, the reason we are constantly legislating is that there are so many new issues arising in the court system and society, which must be regulated and legislated for — the absence of such legislation would create other problems.
I ask the Taoiseach to return to a point he made in reply to a supplementary question. Will he agree that one of the reasons for the high cost of law in this country and the United Kingdom is the uncertainty experienced by lawyers in attempting to give their clients an absolute interpretation of the state of the law because of the absence of statutory instruments which give effect to the implementation of Acts of the Oireachtas or Parliament?
If he accepts that opening premise, will he, therefore, agree that one of the contributions which this Government and the British Government could make, in the spirit of the British-Irish Agreement and for closer co-operation between both our jurisdictions — I use the word "jurisdiction" advisedly — would be to ask the two Law Reform Commissions to identify the main 30, 40 or 100 Acts and their related statutory instruments which govern the day to day activities of the commercial, environmental and other activities of both jurisdictions?
The facts associated with that corpus of primary legislation and statutory instruments should be put in a format which would be accessible, i.e. CD-ROM. That would enable both jurisdictions to ensure that costs associated with expensive searches and qualified judgments in relation to legal opinion could be minimised and, in some cases, eliminated.
I formally ask the Taoiseach to consider requesting, if not directing, the Law Reform Commission, which I think reports directly to the Department of the Taoiseach, to undertake this task in the context of the British-Irish Agreement which is due to be signed and which animates the entire project.
Is the Deputy talking about pre-1922 legislation?
Yes, because we are dealing with the rest.
We have a database on the rest.
This jurisdiction has taken responsibility for putting on CD-ROM in an accessible way all post-independence legislation. There is still a corpus of other legislation which is pertinent to some critical transactions and which informs and affects our efficiency as a Republic to do our business. That legislation interacts with the United Kingdom. If the United Kingdom is behind us in regard to post-1922 legislation, that is its problem.
I am asking the Taoiseach to instruct or request the two Law Reform Commissions to identify, out of our 300 or 400 years of shared legislation, the pertinent legislation and statutory instruments, which is the relevant point at issue. I am asking for these to be identified, transcribed and put into CD-ROM format. We would share the cost of that project.
I will take up the matter. I do not want to be too precise about what they can do because I am not too sure about it.
Let them investigate it.
Our people are at present involved in looking back, in any case, and I know they are not certain about what the project involves. However, while it was costly to do this with the post-1922 legislation, it was a good project. If the Law Reform Commission and its counterparts in England and Scotland, with which it has a very good relationship, can play a valuable role in this, I will request them to do that. I will take the matter up and communicate with the Deputy on it.
Thank you.
