Judicial Review - A Tool of Repression?

I'll see what I can do about fleshing out the S2S question regarding planning etc. over the next while. I'm very familiar with exactly what's going on but I want to provide a link based examination. Tis mad stuff and folks just won't believe this one without me offering substantiation.

You don't like mediation Aragon?

Tis becoming more popular. Most contracts these days possess a mediation clause. Which of course is saying avoid the process like the plague if you can.

The current methodology regarding judicial practice is very flawed. But for the most part, I'm a fan of the advocate system. Regarding judicial review, it has its place and no matter how much I'd like to have it ripped from the face of the earth at times, I cannot but admit that it most certainly has its uses. To me, it's not really a matter of needing to remove JR, it's a matter of coming up with something that can and will deliver the promises made in article 40 of Bunreacht. I'm hoping to make the time to ramble through a few ideas about this, but time's a bit tight for me at the moment. I don't want to start something and then have to leave it mid flow, I'm guilty enough of that on a few threads as it is.

I will say something to get the ball moving in that general direction though. It's not all the fault of the justice system. And consequently, the solutions don't all involve the justice system.

A big problem is education. Most people have only the most rudimentary grasp of the law (never mind their rights) and yet are expected to obey the law (by intuition?). If you were to say the phrase 'article 40,' to most Irish people, they'd have no clue what you were on about. However say the phrase 'I'm pleading the fifth' and everyone knows what you mean. This is an absolutely disgraceful state of affairs. How can we change the ills in our system if people are not empowered?

Aragon wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

I think the distinction is clear. I also think in the environmental judicial review cases I know about the courts stick to procedure pretty well - sometimes it is precisely because people want them to go beyond that that there is frustration.

On the rare occasions when judges stray into environmental matters they are usually disastrous because frankly it is not their field and they don't have a clue.

For sure. People almost always hope that the review will vindicate their case even though the are required to pretend that is not what they are really about. Of course, many/most JRs are entirely legitimate despite that 'secret' objective. Not knowing what they are talking about is a big thing about any judicial decision! Almost any case, to a greater or lesser extent requires them to decide on issues they often know diddly squat about. Hence the expert witness industry etc etc. On the other hand htf else are we, realistically, going to come up with some other form of edjudication that is any better? Civil disagreement and criminal behaviour are an unavoidable fact of human life under whatever system we adopt - even libertarian socialism :-). And please don't anybody mention the idiocy otherwise known as 'mediation'.

All I would say is that the first remedies to hand are the ones to use first - the planning process in Ireland is one of the most open in the world. The courts eat money and in the main don't and can't deal with environmental issues.