People are often willing to applaud compassionate judgments in individual cases but are reluctant to see the same principles translated into law, Baroness Hale told a UCD audience last night.
Baroness Hale is the first woman to be appointed as a law lord, the highest judicial position in the UK and the equivalent of a Supreme Court judge here. She was giving the John Kelly memorial lecture, organised by the faculty of law.
Referring to the case of Tony Bland, who was left in a vegetative state by the Hillsborough football stadium disaster, she said there were some subjects on which parliamentarians were reluctant to legislate.
"People are often prepared to go along with, even applaud, an obviously sensitive and compassionate application of the law in an individual case. But they find it harder to see those very same principles translated into general rules set out in statutory form," she said.