In the UK they purportedly reformed the system of civil justice with the Woolf Report. There is some reason to doubt this.

Now, a debate has started, questioning the complacent view that the reforms were successful.

The debate has the unseemly presence of Lord Woolf in it. It is unseemly for him to “defend” his “reforms”. The subject is too important to be tainted by an effort to defend a personal investment.

However, the debate is a salutary reminder of how far behind we in Ireland are. The UK has a debate; we have nothing.

Instead, we still have a Rules Committee that had to be restrained by the Oireachtas from compelling barristers to wear wigs and that coolly front-loads the costs of litigation on litigants; all without any input into these “ideas” from the profession.

The new Chairman of the Bar Council must surely remember the events surrounding the introduction of the rules of disclosure of reports in personal injury actions.

They should fortify him in his efforts to have canceled, or substantially amended, the new rule of the Superior Courts in Statutory Instrument No. 12 of 2008 as suggested HERE.

The practicality of changing the effect of Statutory Instrument 12 of 2008 is real and the example is found in the recent past.

The Superior Courts Rules Committee introduced an amendment to the rules in 1997, as set out HERE.

Very promptly, the amendment was revoked and replaced by a new rule as set out HERE. This was discussed in the Supreme Court in Payne v Shovlin [2005] IESC.

The Court accepted that the effect of the 1997 rule on disclosure was too broad and the new, replacement rule was of a narrower ambit.

In short, when the bad effects of a rule or rule change is manifest the Rules Committee is capable of responding positively.

Go to it, Mr. Chairman!

(PS: Issue a new Press Release; your website shows Turlough O’Donnell as the Chairman, according to the latest Press Release on the topic; cancel the old Press Release).