Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support what Senator Ward has said.It seems to me that the jurisprudence of the Irish courts system depends on people being able to work out what is being decided in cases, the reasons that are being given and the policies that are being adopted in case law. If everything is shunted down a peg on the ladder, there will, as Senator Ward says, be fewer and fewer written decisions. On a point which is of some significance, the Court of Appeal's jurisdiction will , in effect, be abolished, except in most extraordinary cases, and the question of getting the Supreme Court to consider fundamental questions of family law will be that bit more difficult as well. It is not as if I want to see cases dealt with in the highest available jurisdiction but if we look at the effect of moving everything down a peg, it is to make the principles of Irish family law jurisprudence more and more inaccessible because we will not have written judgments. District Court judges have enough to do without spending as much time as High Court judges are frequently required to on lengthy analyses of case law issues that are put before them and putting their reasoning as to why they agree or disagree with the submissions of one side or the other on the record.

Obviously it is not desirable that every case ends up in a lengthy written decision but we should be cautious about what we are doing. People find that the law is a bit of a mystery and if people cannot write textbooks to explain what section such-and-such is actually interpreted as meaning and the reasons for it are X or Y, then it becomes more and more opaque. People will go to a lawyer only to be told that they may or may not be able to read it in a textbook, but the lawyer will be able to tell them what will happen and the poor old clients are stuck with interpretations that practitioners put on what individual judges are likely or not likely to do. I am with Senator Ward on this.