Who makes the law?

newmug

Hi folks.

Just wondering, who exactly is it that sets the speed limits, minimum penal sentences, pub closing times etc.? Say you wanted to change a law, the speed limit to be lowered for example, what would you have to do and WHO would give the final go-ahead?

Newmug

qz

Laws are largely legislative Acts of the Oireachtas, so it is the democratically elected government that makes black letter law.

jakdelad

qz wrote: »

Laws are largely legislative Acts of the Oireachtas, so it is the democratically elected government that makes black letter law.

years ago archbishop mcquaid made quite a few laws

newmug

qz wrote: »

Laws are largely legislative Acts of the Oireachtas, so it is the democratically elected government that makes black letter law.

Thanks qz. So say enough people wanted the law to be changed such that the speed limit should be changed, what would you have to do to make that happen? Talk to the minister for transport I presume? And then what, would he have to clear it by all the other ministers?

MagicSean

I think the local authority sets the limits.

newmug

Seanbeag1 wrote: »

I think the local authority sets the limits.

Well I'm not talking about JUST speed limits, I was using that as an example. Say you wanted to bring back capital punishment, what steps are required to legalise it?

newmug

newmug wrote: »

Well I'm not talking about JUST speed limits, I was using that as an example. Say you wanted to bring back capital punishment, what steps are required to legalise it?

Leave the European Union, pass a Constitutional referendum removing the prohibition on capital punishment, revoke the ECHR Act and pass new legislation making whatever crime you deem worthy a capital offence.

234

newmug wrote: »

Well I'm not talking about JUST speed limits, I was using that as an example. Say you wanted to bring back capital punishment, what steps are required to legalise it?

If it's a big political issue then you can take any political steps you like e.g. talk to your TD, set up a pressure group, etc. There is no formal procedure for citizens to lobby for changes to the law. The government is not obliged to listen to your requests. So that leaves you with running in the next election.
It would help if you had a specific aim in mind and people might be able to give you more specific advice. As others have noted small stuff like speed limits are set by lecal authorities while other, large issues might involve the constitution or EU law. While the people are ultimately the source of all law in the country it comes about in many ways. The Oireachtas does most of the work. Some power to make regulations etc is delegated to government ministers. Some rules are contained in the constituion and other come from the EU. Then there is also common law i.e. rules that have evolved from case law.

coylemj

newmug wrote: »

Well I'm not talking about JUST speed limits, I was using that as an example. Say you wanted to bring back capital punishment, what steps are required to legalise it?

The answers you're getting should highlight for you the fact that not everything is as clearcut as you think they are.

Speed limits are set by local authorities with the prior agreement of the Garda Commissioner. In practice this means that they are set by faceless local authority staff who are effectively accountable to nobody because councillors have virtually no powers other than to rubber stamp the annual budget.

Capital Punishment is now prohibited under the Constitution, a referendum would be required in order to remove this prohibition, then the Oireachtas (Dail & Seanad) would have to reinstate it for specific crimes by passing a new Criminal Law Act though as an earlier poster has pointed out this would cause problems with our EU partners.

jakdelad

newmug wrote: »

Hi folks.

Just wondering, who exactly is it that sets the speed limits, minimum penal sentences, pub closing times etc.? Say you wanted to change a law, the speed limit to be lowered for example, what would you have to do and WHO would give the final go-ahead?

Newmug

never forget theres 2 laws in this country
1 law for the wealthy and privilaged
1 law for the poor and working class
go to any court and you will see no end of cases like this

oh and very little justice

johnnyskeleton

jakdelad wrote: »

never forget theres 2 laws in this country
1 law for the wealthy and privilaged
1 law for the poor and working class
go to any court and you will see no end of cases like this

oh and very little justice

Give one example of that, or else admit that you have nothing to contribute to the discussion other than trite remarks imported from the USA.

jakdelad

jakdelad wrote: »

never forget theres 2 laws in this country
1 law for the wealthy and privilaged
1 law for the poor and working class
go to any court and you will see no end of cases like this

oh and very little justice

Never forget you offer nothing but disinformation on this forum.

Every time you enter any thread your "contributions" do nothing more than confuse the issues for the people who are asking genuine questions.

234

jakdelad wrote: »

never forget theres 2 laws in this country
1 law for the wealthy and privilaged
1 law for the poor and working class
go to any court and you will see no end of cases like this

oh and very little justice

Link to case report please (and nothing from any news rag).

jakdelad

Deleted User wrote: »

Never forget you offer nothing but disinformation on this forum.

Every time you enter any thread your "contributions" do nothing more than confuse the issues for the people who are asking genuine questions.

try the bbc i rather like the news
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/12/one_law_for_the_rich.html

jakdelad

234 wrote: »

Link to case report please (and nothing from any news rag).

very difficult to prove
like the virgin birth, blackholes in space.

however you cannot prove otherwise

jakdelad

jakdelad wrote: »

very difficult to prove
like the virgin birth, blackholes in space.

however you cannot prove otherwise

It's a basic and universally accepted truth that a person who posits a theory or idea is under an obligation to prove their idea.

Furthermore since a negative cannot be proven positively of course we cannot disprove you as you cannot adduce evidence of something which does not exist.

jakdelad

234 wrote: »

Link to case report please (and nothing from any news rag).

The law is equal before all of us; but we are not all equal before the law. Virtually there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, one law for the cunning and another for the simple, one law for the forceful and another for the feeble, one law for the ignorant and another for the learned, one law for the brave and another for the timid, and within family limits one law for the parent and no law at all for the child


source george bernard shaw

FreudianSlippers

jakdelad wrote: »

The law is equal before all of us; but we are not all equal before the law. Virtually there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, one law for the cunning and another for the simple, one law for the forceful and another for the feeble, one law for the ignorant and another for the learned, one law for the brave and another for the timid, and within family limits one law for the parent and no law at all for the child


source george bernard shaw

****. He's on to us.

FreudianSlippers

Reopened at the request of the OP because they want a clearer answer... let's try to keep it on topic and leave out the opinion.

FreudianSlippers

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

Reopened at the request of the OP because they want a clearer answer... let's try to keep it on topic and leave out the opinion.

newmug wrote: »

Well I'm not talking about JUST speed limits, I was using that as an example. Say you wanted to bring back capital punishment, what steps are required to legalise it?

OP the answer is, unfortunately, it depends.

The type of law you want to change will dictate the method you have to use to change it. Also there are always a few ways to change any law. The most direct is to stand for the Dail and effect change from the public assembly itself.

In the alternative coylemj has outlined quite succinctly the variety of ways that laws can be changed depending on how they were enacted. Something like capital punishment would require an enormous upheaval to change given it is prohibited by Article 2 of the Fundamental Charter of Rights, the ECHR and the Irish Constitution.

johnnyskeleton

newmug wrote: »

Hi folks.

Just wondering, who exactly is it that sets the speed limits, minimum penal sentences, pub closing times etc.? Say you wanted to change a law, the speed limit to be lowered for example, what would you have to do and WHO would give the final go-ahead?

Newmug

The origin of all positive law is the constitution. The constitution was entacted by the people and can only be changed by the people. Arguably, natural law takes priority over positive law but in practical terms, positive law i.e. written law, is what we live by.

Under the constitution, the lawmaking power is conferred upon the Oireachtas. Not the government, not the dail, but the whole Oireachtas. However, such acts as passed by the Oireachtas do not become law until signed by the president.

There is also provision for delegated legislation, i.e. localised or technical laws. These include local speed limits, local bye-laws e.g. no parking areas, and purely technical matters e.g. Minister of Justice can prescribe the forms in which applications are to be made.

There is also an old concept of common law or judge made law. This is the law of resolving disputes among citizens and essentially involves determining whether the well established civil wrongs have been breached or whether the well established rules of contract law have been broken. In modern terms it is highly unlikely if not unconstitutional for judges to make new laws or overturn existing laws. Certainly a judge cannot go behind an act of the Oireachtas, although the High Court can find that a law passed by the Oireachtas violates the constitution in which case it is invalid and struck down.

So ultimately the Oireachtas makes the law, to change the law you would have to convince the Oireachtas to change the law, and the person who has the final say is the President, although she must act on the advice of the council of state. Bottom line, the ruling party/parties have the power to change existing laws or make new laws and in order to change the law you must convince at least a significant portion of that party/parties to make the change.

234

jakdelad wrote: »

source george bernard shaw

Remind me again. How many leading judgments did he write?

jakdelad

234 wrote: »

Remind me again. How many leading judgments did he write?

no law or ordinance is mightier than understanding......


i conclude now...

234

Cryptic ramblings make poor arguments.

amen

blackholes in space.

totally off topic but its generally accepted that blackholes exists and their impact be measured on the surrounding space.

robfitz

newmug wrote: »

So say enough people wanted the law to be changed such that the speed limit should be changed, what would you have to do to make that happen?

This is my understanding of the process as a sectoral representative to the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Transportation Strategic Policy Committee (SPC).

The metric speed limits are defined in the Road Traffic Act 2004 which was enacted by the Oireachtas, initiated by the Minster for Transport. It defines the default speed limits for different types of road; it also allows councils to apply a defined list of special speed limits, which they can assign to roads through bye-laws.

It is likely that all councils have undergone a large review of the special speed limits in their area as part of the introduction of metric speed limits.

I believe the larger review process starts with a motion being adopted at a council meeting, probably put forward by the Manager/executive. The motion will start a many month long process requiring a report and ultimately a suitable bye-laws to be drafted by the council.

The report will be drawn up by the Transportation Department with significant input from traffic engineers, relevant guidance, Garda/NRA/NTA input, accident/collision statistics, public/councillor comments and local knowledge; but ultimately will be about improving road safety.

During the process speed limits would be a topic discussed at many Transportation SPC meetings or a local Councillor Area Committee meeting; allowing for more in-depth discussion, questions and input from the members.

If changes are to be made a draft bye-laws will be created, a required period of public consultation will be undertaken. The draft bye-laws will be voted on at a council meeting and become law.


So to change the speed limits at a national level contact your local TDs and lobby the Minster for a change. At the local level contact your local councillors, Transportation Department Director of Services or the Chair of the Transportation SPC.

Now to get anywhere your going to have to be able to come up with logical reasons to justify any change.

coylemj

And after all that mind-boggling 'consultation' they still impose a speed limit of 60 km/hr (37.5 mph) on the N11 south of UCD, a dual-carriageway plus a bus lane (i.e. three lanes in each direction) where there are no pedestrian crossings, no shops, no schools and no houses fronting on to the road.

This despite the fact that there are villages all over the country with single carriageway 'N' roads running through them with speed limits of 80 km/hr.

newmug

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

Reopened at the request of the OP because they want a clearer answer... let's try to keep it on topic and leave out the opinion.

Thank you very much FreudianSlippers, I appreciate it!


So the overall answer is, it depends! The easiest way seems to be through party politics, but even at that the entire oireachtas has to agree on the change, and then the president has to ok it aswell! Is that roughly right so far?

Well who are the "law reform commission" then, and what exactly are they paid to do?

coylemj

newmug wrote: »

Thank you very much FreudianSlippers, I appreciate it!


So the overall answer is, it depends! The easiest way seems to be through party politics, but even at that the entire oireachtas has to agree on the change, and then the president has to ok it aswell! Is that roughly right so far?

Well who are the "law reform commission" then, and what exactly are they paid to do?

If the law you'd like to change is in statute law (i.e. an Act of the Oireachtas) then for the most part a change to it is effected through an amending act which needs to be passed by the Dail and Seanad. In the vast majority of cases the amending bill will be introduced by the Government and since by definition the Government has a majority in the Dail this usually means that it will be passed in it's original form with possibly a few amendments suggested by the opposition.

In order to improve the overall efficiency of the Houses of the Oireachtas, the Government can sometimes introduce a bill in the first instance in the Seanad who would typically then pass it and send it to the Dail. If the Dail should amend a bill coming to it from the Seanad then it goes back to the Seanad to approve the changes i.e. both houses have to approve the bill in it's final form before it goes to the President to be signed into law.

As the Taoiseach of the day appoints 11 of the 60 members of the Seanad, in practice this means that the Government of the day almost always has a majority in the Seanad.

It's possible for any member of the Oireachtas (T.D. or Senator) to introduce a Private Member's Bill though without the prior agreement of the Government these usually end up going nowhere. Honourable mention should be made here of Alan Shatter, the present Minister for Justice and Defence who while an opposition T.D. at various stages succeeded in getting I believe it was three private member's bills enacted into legislation, they all concerned his speciality which is family law.

You also have hundreds if not thousands of Statutory Instruments which are effectively secondary legislation signed off by ministers, these would be regulations which would be considered too tedious and/or technical to be included in Acts of the Oireachtas. An example would be the regulations concerning the equipment fitted to cars such as the regulations for the dimensions of headlights, number plates etc.

The Law Reform Commission's website explains what they do http://www.lawreform.ie/

Grolschevik

newmug wrote: »

Thank you very much FreudianSlippers, I appreciate it!


So the overall answer is, it depends! The easiest way seems to be through party politics, but even at that the entire oireachtas has to agree on the change, and then the president has to ok it aswell! Is that roughly right so far?

Well who are the "law reform commission" then, and what exactly are they paid to do?

In practice, the government -- that is, the cabinet supported by the members of the party or coalition commanding a majority in the Dail -- has control over making/changing law. In practice, the Seanad does little bar suggest amendments, and the president will sign that law unless she thinks it is potentially unconstitutional, whereupon she will refer it to the Supreme Court for testing.

The Law Reform Commission's job is to examine existing law and see how it might be improved and to propose new laws to address new and/or unforeseen issues. But these proposals are again just suggestions that the government can adopt or ignore.

BornToKill

newmug wrote: »

So the overall answer is, it depends! The easiest way seems to be through party politics, but even at that the entire oireachtas has to agree on the change, and then the president has to ok it aswell! Is that roughly right so far?

If you want the law changed the easiest way is probably to engage lobbyists .

jakdelad

amen wrote: »

totally off topic but its generally accepted that blackholes exists and their impact be measured on the surrounding space.

its generally accepted theres a santa claus and a tooth fairy too...

try usiing the whole quote you may be enlightened

newmug

BornToKill wrote: »

If you want the law changed the easiest way is probably to engage lobbyists .

I dont want any specific law changed, but its just astonishing to me that our law is so convoluted! What do law students actually learn, are they not just handed a book called "The Law", containing pages of rules to memorise?

As a person who knows absolutely nothing about the law, thats what I would have always thought (well obviously there's more to it than that, but you know what I mean!). I find it kinda scary that, as a citizen, I do not have the power to have my concerns enshrined within some sort of legal platform, without all the apparent rigmarole and red-tape.

For example, I dont know if any of you saw the program about certain criminal taxi drivers the other night, but some of these guys are having their licenses renewed after being convicted of rape! Thats pure madness! That should be a no brainer, if you are convicted of rape, you should not be granted any sort of license which enables you to come in contact with vunerable people. That should be law immediately! Another example that springs to mind is that anyone who physically assaults someone else and inflicts head injuries, should be charged with attempted murder.

And more to the point, any citizen should be allowed to put suggestions like this on a form and submit it to their local council, have it reviewed by the dept. of justice, and if its suitable, have it made law within a week.


And this shouldnt just apply to criminal law, all aspects of Irish law need to be standardised. I remember once a German couple wanted to buy a property near where I live. Their (German) solicitor couldnt believe how outdated and unnescessarily complicated our land registry / conveyancing legalities were. I remember him stating it was like something from the industrial revolution era!!!!


Which begs the question, what the hell are the law reform commision actually doing? Why have they not wiped the slate clean, written the book "The Law", and structured our law in a far more user-friendly way?

darragh666

newmug wrote: »

I dont want any specific law changed, but its just astonishing to me that our law is so convoluted! What do law students actually learn, are they not just handed a book called "The Law", containing pages of rules to memorise?

The Law is really big. How could someone memorise it all?

As a person who knows absolutely nothing about the law, thats what I would have always thought (well obviously there's more to it than that, but you know what I mean!). I find it kinda scary that, as a citizen, I do not have the power to have my concerns enshrined within some sort of legal platform, without all the apparent rigmarole and red-tape.

The law is supposed to be a democracy, why would YOU have the power to have your concerns enshrined in law. There is bound to be some red tape when citizens are seeking to exercise certain rights. Maybe too much.

For example, I dont know if any of you saw the program about certain criminal taxi drivers the other night, but some of these guys are having their licenses renewed after being convicted of rape! Thats pure madness! That should be a no brainer, if you are convicted of rape, you should not be granted any sort of license which enables you to come in contact with vunerable people. That should be law immediately! Another example that springs to mind is that anyone who physically assaults someone else and inflicts head injuries, should be charged with attempted murder.

That is only your opinion. Other people will have different opinions on how far punishment should be extended. How can you expect the law to reflect these conflicting concepts.

And more to the point, any citizen should be allowed to put suggestions like this on a form and submit it to their local council, have it reviewed by the dept. of justice, and if its suitable, have it made law within a week.

That would only be possible if a clear and precise concept of the law existed and was shared by everybody.

And this shouldnt just apply to criminal law, all aspects of Irish law need to be standardised. I remember once a German couple wanted to buy a property near where I live. Their (German) solicitor couldnt believe how outdated and unnescessarily complicated our land registry / conveyancing legalities were. I remember him stating it was like something from the industrial revolution era!!!!

Hopefully the land law and conveyancing law reform act 2009 will modernise that.

Which begs the question, what the hell are the law reform commision actually doing? Why have they not wiped the slate clean, written the book "The Law", and structured our law in a far more user-friendly way?

They dont make law.

Those are the shortest responses I can make.

seamus

newmug wrote: »

I dont want any specific law changed, but its just astonishing to me that our law is so convoluted! What do law students actually learn, are they not just handed a book called "The Law", containing pages of rules to memorise?

There is a lot of law. Law books are big. You would effectively be handing them a full set of encylopedia, tens of thousands of pages and asking them to memorise every word.

You need to think of the law in terms of layers. I'm not a law-talking-guy, but I look at it like this (ignore the existence of the EU for the moment);

You have the constitution. This is the core document which describes how our country works at a high level, who's in charge, how they make laws, fundamental rights of citizens and so forth.

Below the constitution, you have the Acts. These are what are usually called "Law". The acts contain the rules by which society works, but not always at a specific level. So an Act will (nearly) never say that "The speed limit on the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway is 60km/h". An Act instead works at a higher level, basically defining what a speed limit is, what kind of agencies can set it and what the penalties are for exceeding it.

Then you have the statutory instruments. These effectively activate the acts. They flesh out the details of the act a bit more. So to take the speed example, the SI will state on what day that part of the act comes into force, a detailed list/schedule of the agencies who can set speed limits and often will set specific penalties for specific offences.

Below that then you have your agencies - county councils, Gardai, regulators. These are the people responsible for enforcing the rules and also applying more detail to them. So county councils have the powers to enact bye-laws that (for example) make it an offence to go over 30km/h within 1km of a school, in the absence of any limit sign. This power is given to them by the Act.

So in order to change a "law", you first need to find out what part of the law your're dealing with. So in your example, if you want a speed limit on a road to be changed, you'd look at the road traffic act and discover that the power to set speed limits is vested in the local authority. So you speak to them to get it changed.

If on the other hand, you want a bigger change, say you want to be given sole responsibility to set speed limits for the whole country. Well the act decides who has this authority, so you would speak to the government.

As a person who knows absolutely nothing about the law, thats what I would have always thought (well obviously there's more to it than that, but you know what I mean!). I find it kinda scary that, as a citizen, I do not have the power to have my concerns enshrined within some sort of legal platform, without all the apparent rigmarole and red-tape.

Well strictly speaking you do. The information is all out there in the public domain. The problem is the research. Joe Citizen doesn't want to do any research. They want someone to hand it all to them on a platter. Sites likes citizensinformation do a great job of condensing down the most important topics to the important bits, but if you were to ask, "Tell me everything about the laws around getting a taxi licence", you'd be looking at a 200 page document. And your average joe isn't going to read that.

Which begs the question, what the hell are the law reform commision actually doing? Why have they not wiped the slate clean, written the book "The Law", and structured our law in a far more user-friendly way?

Well, you see in law there's the concept of precedent. And this is what complicates lots of things.
The above layers of the law I mention would actually be fairly simple, fairly logical. If you want to find out the law on something, you just follow the chain down and you have everything.
Unfortunately outside of the main body of law is case law. Case law (from what I understand) is the history of cases taken under the law and is used as a reference point for making judgement on all future cases. Every so often they go on about a "constitutional crisis" when case law comes up.

So for a simple example, a guy charged with statutory rape admits to having sex with an underage girl, but his defence is that she claimed to be over 17. The judge rules "fair defence" and finds the guy not guilty. In case law, this means that anyone in future who likewise claims that they thought the girl was 17 or over can use that as a defence, even though the law doesn't state that's OK. The law would just state that it's illegal to have sex with someone under 17, point blank, no ifs or buts.
If you remember that the purpose of the law is to regulate society and make society work, not to punish someone for any infraction of the law. So the law isn't rigidly black-and-white because that would be totalitarian.

In effect, the law is black-and-white, but the judiciary along with case law, inject the grey areas into it to create a system which enforces the law without oppressing the citizen.

The reason this is important in terms of "wiping the slate clean" is that if we were to disregard all law up to now and start again, we would be erasing hundreds of years (no, really) of case law and established facts. The courts system would be in chaos and grind to a halt while all of the new laws are challenged and interpreted and refined and reworded. The end result after years of getting nothing else done would be a law book that looks very similar to what we have now anyway because every special case would have to be legislated for, every new challenge and loophole closed out.

For hundreds of years the law has been something of a closed shop, indeed many would accuse legal circles of protecting their interests through the use of unnecessary legal jargon and giving off the impression (much like doctors) that what they do is so utterly complex that only the chosen few are capable of comprehending it. The information age has thankfully opened the doors on it and while joe citizen now has access to the information and the closed shop is much more open, we can see just how necessarily complex the law is, since it needs to maintain a status quo of happiness for millions of people, each with their own vested interests.

(Note: I'm not interested in debating the finer errors in the above post. I'm sure there are thousands)

busman

There is also the fact that many laws on paper are not actualy enforced.

Enforcement is what gives life to laws.

jaybeeveedub

Deleted User wrote: »

Leave the European Union, pass a Constitutional referendum removing the prohibition on capital punishment, revoke the ECHR Act and pass new legislation making whatever crime you deem worthy a capital offence.

shouldn't take more than a weekend.... examinership got done in 24 hours!!

jaybeeveedub

234 wrote: »

There is no formal procedure for citizens to lobby for changes to the law.

there will be from April 2012.... the citizens initiative regulation applies from then at which point 1million citizens can apply to the EU to change a law or issue a directive to a country to change a law..!!

BrianD

coylemj wrote: »

Speed limits are set by local authorities with the prior agreement of the Garda Commissioner. In practice this means that they are set by faceless local authority staff who are effectively accountable to nobody because councillors have virtually no powers other than to rubber stamp the annual budget.

It is unbelievable the kind of rubbish that some people come out with. Faceless local authority staff ... are you for real?

It's funny how so many people in this country that when they can't do what they like and are held in check by the law that it's all the fault of "faceless people" or "unelected officials" etc.

The laws and system are created and shaped by us at the ballot box and thus accountable through a democratic system. We create laws and systems that are for the greater good of the community. We don't customise the legal system to each individual otherwise we would have anarchy.

evercloserunion

So for a simple example, a guy charged with statutory rape admits to having sex with an underage girl, but his defence is that she claimed to be over 17. The judge rules "fair defence" and finds the guy not guilty. In case law, this means that anyone in future who likewise claims that they thought the girl was 17 or over can use that as a defence, even though the law doesn't state that's OK. The law would just state that it's illegal to have sex with someone under 17, point blank, no ifs or buts.

Pretty good post generally, but this isn't exactly correct, if I understand you correctly. The defences available to a person for an offence laid out in legislation are, generally speaking, derived from the legislation itself. So if the law says that anyone who has sex with a girl under 17 is guilty, no ifs or buts, then the court can't simply read in a defence of thinking the person was over 17. However, a superior court could declare such a law to be unconstitutional because it deprives a man of his liberty without affording him a fair defence. The legislature would then respond by enacting similar legislation but with a fair defence available, which would be constitutional. The end result might be the same, but the process is quite different.

Maybe I just misunderstood what you were getting at though :S

seamus

I was more just trying to give an example of how case law and precedent are created rather than give a specific example, but point taken

jaybeeveedub

BrianD wrote: »

It is unbelievable the kind of rubbish that some people come out with. Faceless local authority staff ... are you for real?

.

I think he means this guy... works for DunLaoghaire Rathdown...

Carawaystick

newmug wrote: »

I dont want any specific law changed, but its just astonishing to me that our law is so convoluted! What do law students actually learn, are they not just handed a book called "The Law", containing pages of rules to memorise?

As a person who knows absolutely nothing about the law, thats what I would have always thought (well obviously there's more to it than that, but you know what I mean!). I find it kinda scary that, as a citizen, I do not have the power to have my concerns enshrined within some sort of legal platform, without all the apparent rigmarole and red-tape.

......

Which begs the question, what the hell are the law reform commision actually doing? Why have they not wiped the slate clean, written the book "The Law", and structured our law in a far more user-friendly way?

As has been pointed out, the top level of law in Ireland in the Constitution -- You can download it and read through it in about an hour, it's reasonably clear, a lot of it is about procedures and stuff like the size of the Dáil, the time between elections who can be president etc.

Then you have the acts passed by the Oireachtas - this is basicaly your TD's and rubber stamped (mainly) by Senators. In an Ideal World, the laws passed here would be scrutinised and changes (amendments) made to correct loopholes, prevent unintended consequenses, and generally be discussed a bit before being passed. This doesn't happen though, the govt TD's vote like sheep for the laws the govt want to introduce.
The Common law offence of assault was repealed here and for a few months, people who assaulted people were not able to be convicted because the new statutory law, voted for by TD's said there was no common law offence of assault, so anyone waiting trial under the old law had no case to answer.
Similarily, Mary Harney tried to enact a law to retrospectively legalise the govt taking peoples money for nursing home care. Lawyers like Willie O'Dea, and Brian Lenihan voted for this in the Dáil even though retrospective legislation is clearly unconstitutional( you cant say something that was fine to do in the past is now gonna be liable to tax or criminal sanction)

The Acts from the Dáil are usually vague enough, and say stuff like " ministers may make regulations for x" so Ministers make regulations and these are called Statutory Instruments and are shortened to SI's

Acts and SIs are all published on the govt websites

below this you have byelaws from councils, CIÉ, RPA and other govt bodies-- these aren't published online as a rule, but generally they are for more minor issues

Above the laws TD's make you have EU laws. There's a few different types, some are directly made Irish law, some are guidelines that have to be made into irish law by the Dáil and then there are a few that are actually secret and you are not allowed to know that them even though there is a general principle that ``ignorance of the law is no excuse''. THe laws about airport checking for liquids above 100ml fall into this stazi/kafka category.


Another complicating factor about the laws is that they are amended and there is generally no simple easy to read version of the law. For example there are a series of road traffic acts, the main one written in 1961 but it's been ammended and bits and pieces changed since, mostly through other acts called road trafic act xxxx where xxxx is a year, but sometime by other named acts.

Now as far as I can see, it should be simple to search through the text of the acts, grep out any mention ammending previous acts, and provide a consolidated version, like is done in the USA, but here for reasons that are unclear to me, it is much more difficult, or the Attorney General's office are unwilling to provide the consolidated texts.

Victor

Freudian Slippers and Robfitz have it about right.

Two other factors:
Me
The minister may make regulations adding speed limits for certain types of vehicles, e.g. all HGVs are limited to 80km/h, even when the speed limit is higher and the minister may specify other speed limits, e.g. a 40km/h limit is now permitted.

coylemj wrote: »

And after all that mind-boggling 'consultation' they still impose a speed limit of 60 km/hr (37.5 mph) on the N11 south of UCD, a dual-carriageway plus a bus lane (i.e. three lanes in each direction) where there are no pedestrian crossings, no shops, no schools and no houses fronting on to the road.

This despite the fact that there are villages all over the country with single carriageway 'N' roads running through them with speed limits of 80 km/hr.

Sod that:

50km/h http://maps.google.ie/?ie=UTF8&ll=53.453209,-6.202587&spn=0.004728,0.013937&z=17&layer=c&cbll=53.453148,-6.202624&panoid=1Mp8868AUh2g-FT3rOyUDw&cbp=12,186.25,,0,-0.83

80km/h http://maps.google.ie/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Tyrellstown&aq=0&sll=53.453145,-6.202619&sspn=0.004753,0.013937&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Tyrellstown,+County+Fingal&ll=53.416208,-6.386812&spn=0.002136,0.013937&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=53.416206,-6.386815&panoid=GrmPQyFG-oakLjg4WvfmPQ&cbp=12,215.28,,0,16.28

This psot is not legal advice.

gucis

Law is made by people who have money.

jaybeeveedub

of course it is....

do you expect TD's to work for free...