GAZETTE

Practice & Procedure: Availability of Plain Copies of Supreme and High Court Orders by E-Mail

Attested copy orders of the Supreme Court and of the High Court are required by practitioners for various purposes. However, if a copy order is required for purposes such as the taxation of costs, lodging papers in court for a hearing or simply for record purposes, a plain copy will usually suffice. The Central Office will supply a plain copy of any Supreme or High Court orders perfected on or after 11th January 2008 in electronic, read-only format to any solicitor who is on record for any party in the case in which the order was made. Plain copies will be supplied as email attachments and can be printed or saved to an electronic file management system.

Practitioners should, in the first instance, check the “High Court Search” facility on the Courts Service website (www.courts.ie) to ensure that the order sought has been perfected. If so, a plain copy of an order will be supplied by the Central Office on receipt of an email containing the following four pieces of information:

1. The name of the firm requesting the order
2. The party for whom the firm requesting the order is on record
3. The record number of the case
4. The date on which the order was made and perfected

Information about certain cases, such as in camera cases or cases in the Asylum List, is not available on the website. Applications for copy orders in those cases will be dealt with without requiring the date of perfection to be recited. Orders which are available will be sent by return e-mail or, if not perfected, will be referred by Central Office staff to the relevant registrar.

Email requests that do not contain all of the above information can neither be acted on nor responded to.

Email requests should be sent to HighCourtBespeaks@courts.ie

Prepared and reproduced with kind permission of www.courts.ie and the Courts Service News.

TASC Review Continues at Great Pace

TASC is without doubt the most extensive review ever undertaken into how we deliver our services and how we could restructure the organisation to achieve a better service for court users, to be a better place to work, to improve performance and deliver improved value for money.

A number of areas have been examined over recent months. In this regard a number projects were established under the umbrella of the TASC programme, as follows:

1. Review of court venues
2. Review of role of the County Registrar
3. Service delivery model
4. Resource allocation
5. Human resource strategy

The work of this phase of the programme was to examine a range of options within the overall vision and corporate objectives set out in the Strategic Plan 2008-2011 and also take account of the current challenging economic environment.

During the course of the past few months a huge amount of work has been done by a large number of managers and staff across the Courts Service. The Project Managers and Project Teams in particular have given very generously of their time, on top of an already busy work schedule, and have made an enormous contribution to progressing this review. Also the cooperation received from staff in the offices that took part in the two week pilot study, during October, as part of the Resource Allocation project, is very much appreciated.

A very ambitious challenge was set in taking on this exercise, against a very tight time frame. Reports of the findings and recommendations have now been produced and these are now being considered by the TASC Programme Board and the Senior Management Team.

The TASC Programme Board met in November to give initial consideration to the findings. The Senior Management Team met in early December to consider the findings. It is ultimately a matter for the Senior Management Team to sign-off on the recommendations that will go to the Board.

A briefing will be given to the Courts Service Board at its meeting in December, with the final report due to be submitted to the Board in early 2010. As soon as possible after the Board meeting, we will update all staff and other stakeholders regarding the findings and recommendations emerging from the projects. We are preparing a comprehensive communications plan to inform our approach to communicating with all stakeholders. We will be operating on the basis that we will make information available as soon as possible.

Prepared and reproduced with kind permission of www.courts.ie and the Courts Service News.

Law Reform Commission Considers Legal Aspects of Family Relationships

The Law Reform Commission has long been engaged in a project to reform family law. To date several matters have come under the spotlight including the rights and duties of cohabitants, family law courts and the implementation in Ireland of a number of Hague Conventions in the family law area. The Commission’s most recent contribution is a consultation paper examining the rights and duties of fathers in relation to guardianship, custody and access to their children and the rights and duties (if any) of grandparents.

Among the interesting provisional recommendations in the paper is one that instead of the current legal terms ‘guardianship’, ‘custody’ and ‘access’, the law should use the terms ‘parental responsibility’, ‘day-to-day care’ and ‘contact’ to give a clearer indication of what is actually involved in this part of family law. The idea is to remove any misunderstanding that parents might have rights involving their children without corresponding responsibilities.

The Commission proposes a statutory presumption that a non-marital father be granted an order for guardianship (parental responsibility) unless to do so would be contrary to the best interests of the child or would jeopardise the welfare of the child. Submissions are invited on whether automatic guardianship for all fathers should be introduced.

The distinction between birth registration and the allocation of guardianship should remain. This would be accompanied by provisions to encourage greater joint registration of births.

In respect of access the Commission recommends the removal of the current two stage application procedure by members of the extended family. Submissions are invited on whether the categories of persons who can apply for access should be expanded to include persons with a genuine (bona fide) interest.

As in all matters concerning children, the Commission regards the welfare and the best interests of the child as the primary consideration in the context of its Consultation Paper. It suggests that persons other than parents should be able to apply for custody of a child where the parents are unwilling or unable to exercise their responsibilities.

Submissions are invited as to whether the wishes of the child should be considered in making a decision on an application for access by a member of the child’s extended family. The Commission also invites submissions on whether it would be appropriate to develop a procedure to extend guardianship to a step-parent.

The Consultation Paper Legal Aspects of Family Relationships is available on www.lawreform.ie

Prepared and reproduced with kind permission of www.courts.ie and the Courts Service News.

Additional Reports on Family Law Cases To Be Made Available

As part of the Courts Service project to report on family law over 150 reports were published in Family Law Matters. They covered all court jurisdictions and included matters across the entire family law spectrum including divorce, judicial separation, nullity, guardianship, custody, access, maintenance and partition.

Additional reports collected during the project will be available on the Courts Service website, www.courts.ie, in the coming weeks. As with Family Law Matters these cases cover a variety of issues across all court jurisdictions. The Courts Service took advantage of the relaxation of the ‘in camera’ rule following the enactment of the Civil Liability and Courts Act, 2004 to make information available for legal practitioners, the media, researchers and the public on the workings of our family law courts.

For the first time, reports of the many issues of concern to litigants and the attempts by judges to resolve them were made available.

The project was conducted without identifying the parties in the cases thus protecting the privacy of the families involved. The reports assisted in dispelling some of the misapprehensions surrounding the application family law.

All issues of Family Law Matters are available on www.courts.ie.

Prepared and reproduced with kind permission of www.courts.ie and the Courts Service News.

Accomodation in the Criminal Courts of Justice: An Overview

Entry Area

• ‘Great Hall’ with sufficient circulation space for safe, comfortable access and exit
• Substantial security presence and security monitoring equipment
• Information/reception desk and separate jury reception desk

Courts and Ancillary Facilities

• Sixteen jury courtrooms and six non-jury courtrooms
• Sixteen jury rooms accessible from jury courtrooms in a secure area
• Thirty one consultation rooms
• Circulation spaces for public waiting and safe and efficient access and egress from courtrooms
• Victim support suites and ancillary facilities within a secure area
• Twenty six judges chambers and ancillary facilities in a secure area
• Large jury assembly space in a secure area sufficient to cater for up to 400 people
• Facilities for prosecution witnesses (including vulnerable witnesses in a secure and reassuring area)

General

• Accommodation and facilities for security and jury minding personnel
• Kitchen and restaurant facilities and separate dining for juries
• Parking for prison vans and official personnel

Professional Facilities

• Legal practitioners’ rooms in a secure area with ancillary facilities including prison video link
• Accommodation and facilities in a secure area for the DPP, Prosecution Solicitors, Gardai and Probation and
• Welfare Service
• Media room and space for broadcast studio(s)

Staff

• Accommodation and facilities for in excess of 60 staff
• Large combined Public Office dealing with business from all criminal jurisdictions
• Meeting rooms and storage
• Bail Office

Secure Area

• Cell accommodation for 100 prisoners
• Prisoner reception area with ancillary facilities
• Prison Officer accommodation and facilities
• Control Room and Prison Van Dock

Information Technology

• Eleven courts fully equipped with technology and further courts cabled to support full technology use
• All courtrooms cabled to support video conferencing and digital audio recording
• Central communications room and local communications rooms on each floor
• Sound proof booths within technology courts and video conferencing booths adjacent to video conferencing
• courts
• Computer room and video link rooms for taking testimony from vulnerable witnesses.

Prepared and reproduced with kind permission of www.courts.ie and the Courts Service News.

Gazette Archives

We appreciated that many of our members will continue to read these articles long into the future, to this end, we have developed a Gazette archive where the articles will stay for anyone who wishes to peruse them.

To access the Gazette Archive needed, simply click on the link below;

GAZETTE ARCHIVE No. 1

• IILEX 2008/2009 Edition of 'The Brief'
• IILEX ARCHIVE: 2006 GCD Graduation
• eConveyancing
• One To Watch: New Legislation - Broadcasting Bill 2008
• Legislation Update 16th September - 20th October, 2008