You may also have noticed the sudden flurry of media appearances and debates on radio around the issue of Minister of State Sean Sherlock’s plan to introduce a law to allow the music labels (and other copyright holders) to seek injunctions forcing Irish ISPs to block access to sites they don’t like.

“I will introduce this imminently, by the end of January.”
- Minister Sherlock, Sunday Business Post, 22^nd Jan 2012

This SOPA Ireland law, as it is is called, is similar to the proposals defeated in the US only a week ago after a mass uprising of grassroots protest- first from Reddit, and then joined by the biggest names on the net- Google, Wikipedia and so on.

However, unlike that US law, people here can’t even expect to have this blocking law debated in their legislature. The Minister has said that he intends to deal with the matter by way of a Ministerial Order. Nor has he published the text of the law. The first we, the people of Ireland, will know about the text of this law will be when it is signed and brought into force.

This is grossly wrong. This is why we were so enthusiastic when Sabrina Dent suggested that we launch a petition website to let other people (a) know what was going to happen and (b) tell the Ministers responsible that they object to the proposal.

That was long, long ago now. Monday morning to be exact. Since then, 30,000 people have emailed the Minister for State Sean Sherlock and Minister Richard Bruton at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to tell them they DO NOT WANT.

I, Richard Bruton, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by section 3 of the European Communities Act 1972 (No. 27 of 1972) and for the purpose of giving further effect to Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society [1], as amended by Corrigendum[2], hereby make the following Regulations:

- Opening paragraph of the leaked Draft Text of the Ministerial Order

Minister Sherlock has been traveling around the airwaves acting as a recruitment sergeant for the petition by providing worrisome, self contradictory, “reassurances” about what he intends to do.

All in all, so far, our Public Interest Campaign site has facilitated a very successful piece of civic action.

But more will need to be done. Minister Sherlock has said that he intends that Richard Bruton will bring the Ministerial Order to Cabinet.

This is, to put it mildly, unusual.

A Ministerial Order (otherwise known as a Statutory Instrument) is only intended to bring in secondary legislation -ie, tidying up the administrative side of policies and laws already passed through the Oireachtas after proper debate.

On 29^th July 2011, the Minister was put on notice of this difficulty when Digital Rights Ireland (our client) wrote to his Department;

It is significant that Charleton J. in EMI v. UPC [2010] IEHC 377 referred to any legislative intervention being properly a matter for the Oireachtas. The Opinion of the Advocate General in Scarlet (Extended) v. SABAM (Case C-70/10) similarly referred to a need for legislation in this area to be “democratically legitimised” (at para. 113).

It would be undesirable in any event for a matter dealing with fundamental rights to be disposed of by way of secondary legislation. It is all the more undesirable in this case, however, given the vague and open-ended nature of the powers involved. This is, in effect, a case of delegation heaped on delegation – rather than rules governing blocking and other remedies being made by primary legislation, or even secondary legislation, they are instead effectively being made by delegation to the judiciary.

The new plan to bring the matter to cabinet is an admission of the truth of that argument. But a discussion behind closed doors amongst a handful of Ministers is not good enough.

If a matter is so significant, contentious and complicated that it must be debated by Cabinet, by definition, it is not a matter which is suitable to be brought in by Ministerial Order without public debate and without careful scrutiny of the proposed text.

Ministers Bruton and Sherlock must now bring a Bill before the Oireachtas and let the sunlight in. This issue is too important to be left to the murk of backroom deals.

We now know that the losses in Quinn Insurance Limited were on the UK insurance business and that much of those losses were on professional indemnity policies for UK solicitors.

We don’t mind blowing our own trumpet, but it is depressing that what is easily seen by modest us cannot be seen, or will not be seen, by people who are paid to be exquisitely knowledgable about their field of “expertise”. Meaning here, Sean Quinn. He should return his salary of the last six years at least to Quinn Insurance Limited.

In 2007 McGarr Solicitors represented Catherine Murphy and Finian McGrath in a High Court challenge (Murphy & Anor -v- Minister For Environment & Ors [2007] IEHC 185) to the failure of the Oireachtas to revise the constituency of Dublin West (among others) due to the increase of population since the previous election. On a revision, based on the latest Census of Population, Dublin West would have had an extra Dail seat.

The Defendants were the Minister for the Environment, Ireland and the Attorney General. Under the Constitution, the “real” culprit was the Oireachtas. The Court said;

“It is important to note, firstly, that the obligation is one on the Oireachtas rather than the Government.”

It is notorious that this view of the Oireachtas is seriously deficient, although Constitutionally correct. The Oireachtas is powerless without the active support of the Government. Failures of the Oireachtas are in fact failures of the Government.

Our plaintiffs, Catherine Murphy and Finian McGrath failed in their challenge to defend democratic principles; Pearse Doherty has not.

Leaving aside issues as to the differences in a failure to move a writ for a bye election and a failure to revise a constituency, were we asking for the wrong “order”?

A sometime television advertisement showed a customer in a crowded pub catching the attention of the barman by asking for a Du.. Du.. Dubonnet, and being heard.

No more pints of Guinness!

We see a commendation in similar terms from Professor Donal Byard of New York in the Irish Times (HERE).

Now we need only await the usual sullen silence by way of response.

SHELL E & P IRELAND LIMITED
Plaintiff
And
PHILIP MCGRATH, JAMES PHILBIN, WILLIE CORDUFF,
MONICA MULLER, BRID MCGARRY, PETER SWEETMAN
Defendants

And
THE MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS MARINE AND NATURAL RESOURCES, IRELAND AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Defendants to the counterclaim of second and fifth defendants
Update (17th March 2010)
1. On 18th and 19th November 2008, Judge Laffoy heard the application, on motion, of the State to determine as a preliminary issue whether the 2nd and 5th Defendants are precluded from raising “public law issues”.
2. McGarr Solicitors act for Brendan Philbin and Brid McGarry, the 2nd and 5th Defendants. Their counsel are Lord Dan Brennan QC and Mark Dunne BL. The Chief State Solicitor acts for the Minister, Ireland and the AG. Their Counsel are James Connolly SC and Charles Meenan SC. Eugene F Collins act for SEPIL. Its counsel are Patrick Hanratty SC and Declan McGrath BL.
3. The court has decided (judgment delivered on 4th March 2010) that the 2nd and 5th defendants are NOT precluded from raising “public law issues”.
4. The proceedings commenced in April 2005, when Shell E & P Ireland Ltd. (”SEPIL”), issued plenary summons proceedings against the defendants. Mr. Philbin was committed to prison for 3 months, effectively, on the application of SEPIL on the grounds that he had breached an injunction restraining him from preventing SEPIL from entering his land.
5. In the events that have happened, SEPIL applied for and received the leave of the court to discontinue its claims against the defendants. This happened after SEPIL had received the defences of the defendants and the 2nd and 5th Defendants had counterclaimed against SEPIL and successfully joined the Minister and Ireland and the AG as further defendants to the counterclaim. SEPIL’s discontinuance did not end the counterclaim. The counterclaim is substantial. As against the Minister, Ireland and the AG it claims that certain Compulsory Acquisition Orders made by the Minister regarding the land of the defendants are invalid. It also claims that a consent allegedly made by the Minister in favour of SEPIL, to construct a pipeline over the defendants’ land is invalid.
6. The Minister, Ireland and the AG asserted that these are “public law issues”. They asserted that issues like these can be challenged only under the procedure set out in Order 84 of the Rules of the Superior Courts. They asserted that, that being so, those claims of the defendants are late. They asserted that the claims, to be admissible, should have been made within the time limits of 3 or 6 months (at most) after the making of the CAOs and the consent.
7. SEPIL supported the State parties in their submissions and position.
8. The defendants denied they are confined by the provisions of Order 84 and/or its “time limits”. They said that Order 84 is not an exclusive procedure; that it cannot be used to shut out the hearing of claims against the State where the State has wronged citizens, particularly with regard to the private property of the citizen. They said, consequently, that the counterclaim should proceed to a full hearing on its merits.
9. The matter has been adjourned for mention before Judge Laffoy to 18th March 2010.

The beginning of this was the Macintosh SE which introduced me to computer use in or about 1987.

For me, then, the database program in Appleworks was the most valuable element of the machine and its software. Despite the passage of time I have not found a database program as useful as that, despite its limitations, which were obvious.

Those limitations brought me to think about relational databases; in short, to look into the world of mathematicians and nerds, a place for which I was and am constitutionally unsuited. (Ten plus fifteen is twenty-six, right?).

Bill Gates of Microsoft owned or controlled the alternative machine. For me, it was’nt at the races.

So, now Bill Gates has retired. I endorse his future plans; I decry his past. Without him the better system, the Mac, would be everywhere.

Everywhere would have the benefits of an aesthetic and economical approach to computing. Unlike Bill Gates’ system, one would not encounter a “counter-intuitive�? element in an interface.

Which is not to say that native wit is everything in the learning of a Mac program; it is not.

But in Bill Gates’ system it would have been an impossibility to use Pagemeker to publish a book, as I have done, with the program written in Italian for the Italian market.

Ciao, Bill.

Or has it? What is a veto? More particularly, what is a veto in the European Union?

Ireland has previously cast a veto (in the EU Council of Ministers) and it was denied that it had that effect. That is, it was treated as a dissent, not as a block.
See HERE for details.

The defeat of the Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland is not a rejection of the European Union. However, the response of the European Union may indeed lead to a rejection of the EU. Only a Union based on law can attract and hold the allegiance of the people of Europe. The legal basis of the European Union lies in the treaties. Under the treaties Ireland’s assent to the Lisbon Treaty is a requirement to bring it into force.

To say that implementing the Lisbon Treaty was “going to be difficult” as Christine Lagarde the French Finance Minister did in Korea is to imply that the European Union is not an entity built on law.

To press ahead as President Sarkozy and Gordon Brown propose is to subscribe to the same implication. To propose a “two-speed” Europe (see HERE) is a proposal to abandon the European Union, a legally questionable idea.

At risk of contradiction by experts in the British constitution (has that been located yet?) it is most unlikely that the Queen would claim such a role or welcome the delivery of the petition regardless of her views on the two competing names, or her predecessor, Charles II.

A change in the law is a better suggestion.

The Law Society of Ireland had its name changed under Section 4 of the Solicitors (Amendment) Act 1994. The Society was formerly known as the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland. Like the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, it is an incorporated body under charter (in the case of the Law Society, a charter from Queen Victoria in 1854). These two chartered bodies are unusual in Ireland in not being semi-state bodies; not being subject to the provisions of the Companies Acts 1963-2003 and not being subject to oversight by the Oireachtas or, effectively, the Competition Authority (as currently operating).
Changing your name is normally charged with meaning. The trick is to find the meaning.

Kristian von Hornsleth made a general offer to the residents of a village in Uganda to gift them each a pig or a sheep if they adopt his name. Edith Hornsleth Babirye defended this arrangement (relationship?) following receipt of her pig, which she plans to use to pay school fees.

If you are in Illinois and want to be a judge – change your name. (To “O�?Brien�? it seems). Fred Rhine, look at this.

Minister of State Tony Killeen TD did not change his name but he has pleaded, effectively, a nomenclature malfunction. He denies responsibility for appeals in his name to Michael McDowell SC TD, for the early release of a murderer and, separately, a child rapist. The appeals were generated by a system established by Mr. Killeen; calculated to benefit him; written on his notepaper; purporting to be signed by him. A court would, on evidence like that, in a suitable case, convict him of conspiracy at least.

If he wants to change his name he needs to lodge a Deed Poll to that effect in the Central Office of the High Court.

The Law Society of Ireland didn’t have it that easy, it seems.

The members are unpaid for their work. They are, of necessity, deeply involved in conveyancing practice and, of course, earn their living from doing so. They tend not to belong to the category of solicitor who seeks election to the Council of the Law Society.

The Conveyancing Committee oversees the production of the various editions of the Law Society General Conditions of Sale. These form part (hopefully) of every conveyancing sale transaction.

It also oversees the production of the Law Society’s Requisitions on Title. These form an indispensable check-list of questions to be answered by the vendor or mortgagee in a conveyancing transaction.

The Conveyancing Committee is an important body; its work is known to the legal profession (and the judiciary) but unsung in public.

I have a soft spot for the Committee, having found no response to my assertion to colleagues that Professor Farrand cracked jokes in his book “Contract & Conveyance�?; dry jokes, admittedly.

It’s lonely, being a conveyancer.

It’s a fine two story building of red brick and terracotta with two wings on either side of a fine staircase to the entrance.

Court 52 is clearly occupying what was once a hospital ward; broad and well lit, with gracious ceiling height in proportion to the size of the space.

The structure inspires confidence in its developers, the medical men (and women?) who brought it into being. There would have been no surgical swabs left unforgotten by those people in a patient after the scalpel wound was sewn up. They also believed in the germ theory of disease.

This sense of carefulness and planning can be seen in the title documents of the premises. I acted for a potential unsuccessful purchaser when it ceased to be a hospital and was offered for sale.

The Hospital trustees had been very careful over a long period of time and never failed to use the services of a good surveyor or cartographer. In addition they had been compelled to assemble the site painstakingly, each sliver of land (particularly on the road frontage) being carefully mapped and associated with its title deeds.

Again, thanks to the same people, it now helps to bring a civilized tone to what can be a stressful process (even for the lawyers).