Author Archives: Edward McGarr
Flypaper society
Buglife was trying to restrain development which, as the Court heard, would probably result in two national, 17 regional and 37 local invertebrate extinctions if the development went ahead.
The, Private, Public Servant
Our Financial Regulator is confident, and has asserted so in public, that he is not at fault in failing to properly regulate the Irish Banks in circumstances where they ultimately needed rescuing by the taxpayers. For his pains he has been told by (some) elected representatives he ought to resign. In fact, it is difficult to criticise him. That is not to say he is not open to criticism, just that it is difficult to do so, as was seen […]
Drink Driving: Obligations to certify medical evidence
In considering the requirements of a driver accused of drink driving offences the Supreme Court has decided that the words: require the person to provide, by exhaling into an apparatus for determining the concentration of alcohol in the breath, 2 specimens of his breath and may indicate the manner in which he is to comply with the requirement” mean that a person need only, on request by a Garda officer, provide two specimens of his/her breath and need not supply […]
No Apple for Teacher
We see it in the abolition of an outrageous assumption; that people of power may beat up other people.
Opinionated
There is also the question of talent. Commonly we “know�? what we have to find out, before we find it out. Fortune favours the prepared mind.
Devaluation
Neither Minister noticed, as Advocate-General Bot now says, that he was attending a Community institution, as opposed to a Union institution.
A rose by any other name…
When the “Evening Herald�? published a report in December 2004 about a certain criminal case it would have been hard to foresee the actual consequence of the publication.
Ex Parte
For this reason a court has to be very careful in making orders ex parte. The absolute necessity for the making of the order without notification to the respondent must be shown. Considerable damage may be inflicted on the respondent, unfairly, by an order restraining the respondent from acting in some matter or fashion.
The Dog Ate the Homework
That this should emerge twice in the one month, in the Supreme Court is a measure of two things; the frequency with which the Gardai prematurely dispose of evidence and the sclerosis of the criminal prosecution system that it should so stubbornly cling to the determination to prosecute in cases where the accused claims to be disadvantaged in making his/her defence.