First step
“This is only the first step,” said the Chief Justice. “I can see no reason why all further stages of the appellate process could not be facilitated by online filing, and indeed, the use of IT to support oral hearings.”
The Chief Justice is to push forward with paperless hearings after a successful appeal was conducted recently, entirely through the use of tablets by all legal personnel.
The Chief Justice pointed out that the judiciary has embraced technology with judgments now being amended using electronic editing tools.
Significant reform
There are two pieces of legislation in train which will have a significant effect on the judiciary, the Chief Justice said.
- “The Judicial Appointments Commission Bill will undoubtedly bring about significant reform in the way in which judges are appointed.
- “The Judicial Council Bill will, for the first time, provide a proper framework for judicial training and ethics.
The judiciary has long supported the principle of both of those measures recognising the need for reform of the appointments process and the establishment of a Judicial Council,” he said, reiterating that the judiciary will continue to engage in an appropriate fashion as the legislation passes through the Oireachtas.
The right of the judiciary to speak on such matters was reaffirmed by the Chief Justice who dismissed suggestions that such engagement is inappropriate.
“I know of no jurisdiction in the world where it is not considered reasonable and appropriate for judges to make their views known in an appropriate way in relation to proposed legislation which actually affects the judiciary itself,” he pointed out.
There are few formal legal barriers to access to justice, the Chief Justice said, but there are practical issues in that certain types of litigation are beyond the resources of many.
“Not all of the measures which may be needed to improve access to justice are within the control of the judiciary,” he said. “But some are.
“In particular I very much welcome the establishment of a committee in the chairmanship of the President of the High Court Peter Kelly, to engage in a thorough review of civil procedure.
"Furthermore many individual solutions which were put in place to deal with particular problems in the past may have worked in the narrow sense of easing the identified problem, but have led to a somewhat unwieldy and sometimes overly complex system,” he said.
On this point the Chief Justice said that many current court rules date to the 1870s, and the fact that they are venerable does not mean they are not fit for purpose.
However, he said “the experience of new experiments such as the commercial court has demonstrated that it often requires a radical reappraisal to identify better ways of doing things.”
The second major priority which the Chief Justice addressed is the important difference in the courts systems of civil law jurisdictions [in continental countries] and common law countries.
“There is a significant shifting of the burden of carrying litigation in common law countries on to the parties and away from the state.
“In civil law systems the courts themselves, that is judges and judicial staff, carry a much greater burden of ascertaining the facts and researching the law.
“But that comes at a cost in terms of the much greater numbers of personnel who are required to staff the courts in those jurisdictions.”
The taxpayer contributes much less to the running of a court system in a common law country than in a civil law jurisdiction, the Chief Justice concluded.
Court users also contribute significantly in Ireland in the form of court fees, he said, calling for additional resources to be deployed to the system.
In particular, back-up research facilities can significantly speed up court hearing times, he said, pointing out that each senior judge in the US federal system has access to four first class honours law graduates.
Recruitment difficulties have put the Irish judicial research system in line for a radical overhaul. And the Chief Justice called for an increase in Court of Appeal judges, pointing to the unsustainable workload in the appellate court.
Finally the Chief Justice said that, post-Brexit, Ireland will be longer be able to rely on a well-resourced neighbour to test how EU laws will fit in a common law jurisdiction and he signalled an increased burden ahead for the Irish state in this area.