Ahern announces the enactment of the Legal Practitioners (Irish Language) Act 2008
The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr Dermot Ahern, T.D., today announced that the Legal Practitioners (Irish Language) Act came into operation on the 9th July 2008. The Act replaces existing statutory provisions for Irish language competence for barristers and solicitors. It promotes the better provision of legal services thought the Irish language.
The Act requires King’s Inns and the Law Society to provide Irish courses as part of their professional training courses and the establishment of registers of practitioners who are fully competent to provide legal services through the Irish language.
Minister Ahern stated: "The new Irish language requirements in the Act will provide for a level of proficiency in Irish in the legal profession of a significantly higher standard than was being delivered in the past. The innovation in establishing registers of solicitors and barristers of proven competence to provide legal services through Irish will be of immense value to persons who wish to exercise their constitutional and statutory right to use Irish in proceedings before the courts".
The Act requires that King’s Inns and the Law Society have regard to the status of the Irish language as the first official language of the State and to take reasonable steps to ensure that an adequate number of barristers and solicitors are able to practice law through Irish. The Act requires that King’s Inns and the Law Society hold courses on Irish legal terminology and the understanding of legal texts in the Irish language to enable practitioners to identify the nature of the service being sought and, where appropriate, to facilitate a referral to a practitioner competent to provide a service through Irish.
Both King’s Inns and the Law Society will also establish advanced courses on the practice of law through the Irish language as optional subjects in their professional training courses. Examinations in the practice of law through Irish will be held for those persons who have undertaken the advanced course. The name and contact details of barristers and solicitors who pass the examinations will be entered on registers established and published by King’s Inns and the Law Society.
Both King’s Inns and the Law Society readily agreed to take on these new statutory responsibilities in order to provide a better service to the public. The new arrangements will come into operation for the coming academic year.
The Act is available on the Oireachtas website – www.oireachtas.ie
29 July 2008
Note for Editors
The provisions in the Legal Practitioners (Irish Language) Act 2008 replace provisions in the Legal Practitioners (Qualification) Act 1929 and the Solicitors Act 1954 (see below).
Previous Irish language requirements for barristers
The Legal Practitioners (Qualification) Act 1929 provided that no person may be admitted by the Chief Justice to practise as a barrister-at-law in Irish courts unless he or she satisfied the Chief Justice, by such evidence as the Chief Justice prescribed, that he or she possessed a competent knowledge of the Irish language. "Competent knowledge" was defined as such a degree of oral and written proficiency in the use of the language as is sufficient to enable a legal practitioner efficiently to receive instructions, to advise clients, to examine witnesses and to follow proceedings in the Irish language.
The obligation to ensure a proficiency in Irish in the case of any barrister who wished to be called to the Bar lay with the Chief Justice but there was no requirement to include Irish as either an optional or obligatory subject in the Kings Inn’s Barrister-at-Law degree course. Any tuition or record of proficiency required was given outside the degree course and arranged so that the Chief Justice could fulfil his or her statutory function.
Previous Irish language requirements for solicitors
The 1929 Act applied to solicitors until 1954 when new arrangements were introduced in the Solicitors Act 1954. To qualify for admission as a solicitor the 1954 Act required that the Law Society require students to undertake two examinations in Irish. The first examination applied to persons seeking an apprenticeship and the second applied to persons wishing to be admitted as solicitors. The purpose of the second examination was to "secure that persons who pass it have a competent knowledge of the Irish language, that is to say, such a degree of oral and written proficiency in the use of the language as is sufficient to enable a solicitor efficiently to receive instructions, to advise clients, to examine witnesses and to follow proceedings in the Irish language". This was the same competency test as used in the 1929 Act for barristers.