LEGAL UPDATE:THE UK-BASED rights watchdog Statewatch has published the following commentary:
On May 10th, 2012, the Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU put on the agenda of Coreper (the EU standing committee of permanent representatives) a draft deal on the proposed regulation on access to documents. This deal, if agreed, would constitute the Council of Ministers’ position for negotiations with the European Parliament, which has joint decision-making powers on this proposal.
An analysis of these proposals, by Steve Peers, professor of law at the University of Essex law school, examines the draft deal and recommends its rejection by the parliament. He concludes:
The draft position of the council constitutes a significant overall reduction in the level of access to documents;
In particular, the council’s definition of a “document” is of doubtful legality and would exclude massive numbers of documents from the scope of the rules;
The parliament should not accept the council proposal in its present form, or any variation thereof which would significantly reduce current standards;
In particular, the parliament should make clear to the council that it cannot in any circumstances accept the proposed definition of a “document”. If the council is adamant on including this definition, the parliament should instantly veto the proposal;
The European Commission's decision to present negotiations in the form of a "recast" – a profoundly undemocratic and indeed surely illegal procedure – has prevented the parliament from pressing for most of the changes it has unanimously voted for. The full analysis of the proposals can be found on iti.ms/N5XBwk.
Facebook summons
A High Court judge has recently allowed a summons to be served on a defendant through Facebook.
The defendant lived outside Ireland and could not be contacted as their home address, telephone number and email address were all unknown. However, it was clear to the court that the defendant was using Facebook. Mr Justice Michael Peart allowed a private message to be sent to the defendant’s Facebook page requiring their attendance at court.
If the defendant fails or refuses to return to Ireland for the court case, they could be found guilty of contempt of court and could be sentenced to prison.
It is likely that requests for this kind of service will now be made in the District Courts and Circuit Courts for all types of summons including family law and debt recovery. However, the judge hearing the request will look at all the circumstances of each individual case before deciding whether to grant the request.
This is the first time in Ireland that a summons has been served using social media and it is expected that it will become quite a popular method for serving summons on defendants who have either emigrated or who play “hard to get”.
Seán Cryan is a solicitor and lecturer in law at the Bray Institute of Further Education
SEAN CRYAN