Judge blasts removal of online legislation directory

Mr Justice Richard Humphreys, handing down judgment on an application from a man engaged in “a protracted campaign of frustration of the legal process”, said he couldn’t fault the applicant for relying on a repealed Act.

Part of the man’s dismissed application relied on the Administration of Justice (Language) Act (Ireland) 1737, which was repealed by the Statute Law Revision (Pre-Union Irish Statutes) Act 1962.

Mr Justice Humphreys said: “While at the hearing I was somewhat minded to fault the applicant for relying on a repealed Act, I now need to add that I have since come to appreciate that he cannot be criticised on that specific point. How is he to know it was repealed?

“For a century, the chronological tables of the statutes (subsequently put online, and renamed the legislation directory) has been a publicly available guide in this regard. Recently however the directory has been removed from the Irish statute book website as a distinct resource.”

The judge said information regarding repealed Acts is “expertly hidden under amendments to in force Acts from the same year”.

As there are no Acts remaining in force today that date from 1737, there is “simply no information available on the official statute book website regarding the Act on which the applicant seeks to rely”.

Mr Justice Humphreys added: “Even the fact that it ever existed has been airbrushed from history without trace, as effectively as the vaporization of an unperson in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

“At the risk of understatement and euphemism, one would have to conclude that such an arrangement can only have resulted from a lack of understanding of the statute book and of the needs of its users (in which category I include litigants, their lawyers, and judges), and of pre-independence legislation in particular.

“If, as one might fervently hope, the applicant succeeds in indirectly drawing attention to this unacceptable state of affairs such that the legislation directory is reinstated as a result, he will have achieved a legacy for which the legal community should collectively be extremely grateful.”