Oireachtas Justice Committee hears findings from public interest law seminar series

The Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence & Equality has heard findings from a unique series of seminars examining the connections between legal action and social change in Ireland, including the impact of public interest law and litigation and the attendant need for reforms to facilitate greater access to justice.

The ‘Changing Ireland, Changing Law’ series was organised by Dr Mary Rogan, Head of Law at Dublin Institute of Technology and Professor Ivana Bacik of Trinity College Dublin in partnership with the Public Interest Law Alliance, a project of FLAC. Dr Rogan and Professor Bacik addressed the Justice Committee along with Rachel Power of PILA on the series findings, following a presentation in the AV room of the Oireachtas for other members.

The series saw innovative input on how law has affected Irish society, showcasing public interest campaigns on women’s rights, LGBT rights, immigration and asylum and public interest litigation. This included many of the individual litigants who took landmark cases in their own right to advance wider change, such as Dr Lydia Foy on Transgender recognition and Mairin de Burca on women’s rights, as well as lawyers, academics and civil society or­ganisations such as the National Women’s Council, the Gay & Lesbian Equality Network and the Immi­grant Council of Ireland.

• General themes emerging from the series indicate general barriers for people seeking to access justice in Ireland:
• High legal costs and lack of legal supports for ordinary people to navigate a complex and expensive process are a distinct chill factor for people seeking vindicate their rights and/or to take cases in the public interest – generally without state legal aid. 
• The personal impact on individuals who take such public interest cases is considerable and often very damaging.
• State bodies and systems can often be non-transparent and complex, such that people need considerable help to access them. 
• People are also negatively affected by delays endemic in both the legal system and state systems generally.

At the briefing, PILA’s Rachel Power outlined key barriers to public interest litigation identified through the series and made the following recommendations:

• The review period mandated within the Legal Services Regulation Bill should be used to assess whether the new legislation is facilitating access to justice through speedy and efficient administration of justice and, if not, resources should be applied to identifying current inefficiencies. 
• The state must ensure effective and timely implementation of judgments to prevent excessive delay in protecting, promoting and defending the rights of its people.
• The courts must be specifically authorised to take into account the public interest nature of a case and legislative provision made for the granting of Protective Costs Orders in public interest law cases.
• The legal aid scheme should be extended to allow for the taking or funding of test cases, which can be contracted out to private law firms or independent law centres.

Click here for a previous Bulletin article on the Changing Ireland, Changing Law series.