Sir, – I refer to the article “Court of Appeal needed to clear backlog of cases” (Opinion & Analysis, September 11th) by Minister for Justice Alan Shatter.
I feel that the present courts system is well able to tackle the business of administration of justice in Ireland. In the early 1990s, the same debate about delays in the Supreme Court was often aired in the media. The then chief justice, Mr Justice Keane, tackled a four-year backlog by instituting a regime of robust case management and a hard-nosed approach to dormant appeals (anecdotally up to a third of all appeals are strategic, and end up being withdrawn or struck out eventually). He successfully brought the waiting time down to nine months.
The efficiency of the Supreme Court could be more effectively dealt with by changing the way the courts do business; for example, by letting the District Court deal with all personal injuries claims under €50,000, and the Circuit Court deal with all other such claims with no limit (with the exception of medical injuries, which would continue to be dealt with by the High Court). Appeals would then stop at the High Court, thus greatly reducing the business of the Supreme Court. The same could apply to all applications for injunctions, family law and judicial review cases.
In this day and age, should we require a High Court judge, followed by the Supreme Court on appeal, to consider and adjudicate as to whether the composite material in a toilet seat caused it to crack and result in some litigant suffering catastrophic injuries to a left index finger, or whether a prisoner on remand should be prescribed Panadol as opposed to a generic paracetamol? I really don’t think so.
Such an approach would result in cheaper costs to litigants and make access to the courts more affordable to those not entitled to legal aid or not considered by practitioners for processing under a no-fault, no-fee regime.
On the other hand, the suggestion would result in less income for practitioners operating under the fee structure of the District and Circuit Court, which is why such a proposal will never be considered, let alone implemented, by any Minister for Justice, including the present incumbent.
At present, cases dealt with by the High Court can have one further outing, on appeal to the Supreme Court. Under the mooted Court of Appeal a further appeal to the Supreme Court is proposed, albeit in limited circumstances. It is certainly within the ability of even the most junior advocate to argue on a point of public importance on even the most audacious grounds, as can be seen from time to time in your newspaper, resulting in a third, and costly, outing to the Supreme Court. I don’t think that the ordinary taxpayer can afford the cost of the mooted Court of Appeal. – Yours, etc,
BERNARD NEARY,
Croaghpatrick Road,
Cabra,
Dublin 7.
Sir, – As always in the case of a referendum, some lawyer enters the fray throwing cold water on the proposal (“Shatter arguments for Court of Appeal ‘incoherent’, says law lecturer”, Home News, September 16th). These always seem to be accompanied by high-sounding words such as “incoherent and incomprehensible”, as used by Seth Barrett Tillman of NUI Maynooth.
It is the case in Ireland that practically any case of significance has to be taken in the High Court. It is also accepted that decisions should be generally appealable.
Currently, outside of criminal law, the only place for an appeal to go is the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land. I suspect for serious business jurisdictions, this is a feature unique to Ireland. It seems inevitable that this will lead to severe congestion in the Supreme Court.
While there is some merit to some of the points made about efficiency, the only way to take routine appeals out of the Supreme Court is to establish a Court of Appeal, as is proposed. If we aspire to be a jurisdiction where people want to do business, we need to sort out this logjam.
The words “incoherent and incomprehensible” more accurately describe the reaction of a client when you explain to them the current mess that this amendment is trying to deal with. – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN HENEGHAN,
Parkmore Drive,
Terenure,
Dublin 6W.