Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan has stressed the importance of the law being accessible to the general public.
Mr Lenihan, who yesterday launched the Law Reform Commission's consultation paper on the consolidation and reform of the courts Acts, said the State's laws underpinned a democratic and open system of government.
"In a modern technologically advanced society, law and regulation play an ever more important role," Mr Lenihan said. "It is important, therefore, that every effort is made to make the law as intelligible and as accessible as possible to the citizen.
"One way of doing this is to have the law on any particular subject available in one source," he said.
Mr Lenihan added that it was certainly not of assistance to have the law relating to a particular subject scattered over innumerable statutes with a confusing number of amendments.
"The Government's policy on better regulation requires that in our modern economy we exercise best practice and best practice surely requires that our system of courts be governed by a modern and comprehensive code of law."
The consultation paper contains a draft consolidated courts Bill on CD-Rom, made up of almost 400 sections and bringing together into a single document the existing text of the courts Acts, including many pre-1922 and all the relevant post-1922 Acts.
Mr Lenihan said that access was hugely important.
"Over recent years, a considerable investment has been made in improving the infrastructure of the courts, introducing information and communication technology and improving procedures. A codification and reform of court legislation would be a further advance.
"The idea of initiating a project to codify the courts' Acts had been around for many years but had not been acted on," said Mr Lenihan.
It was with enthusiasm, he added, that his department greeted a 2004 proposal from the Law Reform Commission to "co-operate in undertaking this task".
