The Minister for Justice has announced the membership of Pre-nuptial Study Group, whose terms of reference will be
to study and report on the operation of the law since the introduction of divorce in 1996 with respect to pre-nuptial agreements taking into account constitutional requirements.
Quite frankly, the law in this area is seriously in need of reform. …
… is a new Law School, a new Law School, a new Law School
Update: 8 January 2007: The formal UCD press release on the announcement has just been published.…
By the eighth amendment to the Irish Constitution, adopted in 1983, Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution now provides:
The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.
Yesterday, in a closely-watched case and a long-awaited decision, the High Court gave judgment on the question whether in vitro embryos constituted ‘unborn’ for the purposes of this provision. In MR v TR [2006] IEHC 359 (15 November 2006), McGovern J held that they did not.…
Apart from the Baby Ann case, two other stories caught my eye, one relating to another judgment of the Supreme Court yesterday (my, they were busy!), the other relating to current controversies in third level education in Ireland.…
Who would be a judge, when faced with two sets of parents willing to provide a home to a child? Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided N v Health Service Executive [2006] IESC 60 (the ‘Baby Ann’ case). Reversing the High Court, the Supreme Court held that a two-year-old girl who has lived with her prospective adoptive parents since she was three months old is to be returned to her natural parents on a phased basis. It was a desprately difficult decision, and my heart goes out to everyone affected by the decision.
There is extensive coverage in today’s media.…
The European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) gets a good press, and rightly so. The world is a better place for it. Ireland finally got around to incorporating it in 2003, by means of the European Convention on Human Rights Act, 2003, but a report launched tonight argues that it has had very little effect so far.
It may be that it is simply too early to tell.…
Carol Coulter, currently Legal Affairs Correspondent of the Irish Times, has been appointed by the Courts Service as a family law reporter to record and produce reports on family law proceedings for distribution to the media and the public. According to the press release, the appointment will be for a 12-month pilot in the first instance, to identify how information on the work of the Family Law Courts can be best disseminated to the Judiciary, the wider legal community, the media and the general public.
The importance of this enlightened appointment cannot be overstated. …
This year, summer ended and term began with the Legal Education Symposium hosted today by the School of Law, Trinity College Dublin in association with Dillon Eustace, Solicitors. I have spent all of September working on this. I blame Daithí, who – to be fair – has also spent all of September working on it too.
This was something we both felt had to happen. …
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