President of the High Court Mary irvine
This morning.
Further to the imminent retirement of Mary Irvine as the first woman president of the High Court…
…Via Irish Times:
Ms Justice Irvine championed controversial new guidelines to slash minor personal injury awards – a deeply, deeply unpopular move in the eyes of many barristers:
“Treason, as far as I’m concerned, what she has done amounts to treason to the Bar,” one senior counsel fumed to The Irish Times this week, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Barristers have felt under siege for some years now, but the impact of the personal injury guidelines has particularly contributed to division in the legal world about Ms Justice Irvine’s tenure in the State’s third most senior judicial position.
“Remote hearings have been expanded much more than necessary, depriving junior barristers of essential training opportunities, and judges should never have got involved in making guidelines which mean people will not get properly compensated for their injuries,” said the same barrister.
Up to a third of barristers may quit, believes a junior counsel: “I think Ms Justice Irvine was excellent at getting the courts up and running again after Covid but I would have liked to see her, as a barrister herself, being more sympathetic to the position of barristers,” she said.
Alternatively…
“The personal injuries barristers can yearn for the halcyon days of the past all they want, those days are not coming back,” according to another barrister, whose area of practice does not include personal injuries. “There’s a whiff of misogyny about a lot of the criticism of Judge Irvine
Legal world divided on legacy of retiring High Court president *Mary Carolan, Irish Times)
