Mr. Ronan Kennedy:

I thank the Senator. There were some really useful remarks in there. The point he made about this not being an either-or issue is important. I may be somewhat of a lone voice in the desert here as I am wearing two hats. As the ICCL is a member of the Ireland Anti-SLAPPs Network, we have a proposal with respect to juries. The ICCL, as a stand-alone entity, is strongly in favour of the retention of juries for all the reasons that were set out at the previous hearing and which I will not go over again. Those democratic reasons and the decision being taken away from what could be seen to be reasonable in the eyes of the general public would be some of our big concerns.

I would not expect the committee to make a recommendation that we should either get rid of juries or keep things exactly as they are. There are shades within this and examples elsewhere that show where things can be amended. It has been mentioned that juries could be retained for findings of fact and then the award of damages could be within the gift of judges, within certain boundaries. That is something we have examined. In our submission we said either party in a case could request a trial by jury if it so wished and a judge could make a decision in the interests of justice if a trial by jury is appropriate for the case in question. I believe that is currently the case in New Zealand and possibly British Columbia. It may be interesting for the committee to look at those case studies. Ms Ní Mhainín may wish to add to that.