Frank Clarke said that Judicial Council guidelines on awards will help in achieving consistency but it is crucial that the system retains the flexibility to take all the factors of each individual case into account.

The same clinical injury may impact very differently depending on the lifestyle or type of work engaged in by the subject, the Chief Justice said in his speech at the Criminal Courts of Justice on 26 September, 2018.

A fair and comprehensive court process allied with consistent yet flexible sentencing and injury awards is the key challenge for the Irish courts service, he said.

The Chief Justice also called for a major investment in IT systems in his speech to launch the new legal year.

Hi confirmed that  new procedures and online filing in the Supreme Court will launch in January.

“The key aim, from our perspective, must be to make access to justice as straightforward and uncomplicated as it can be while at the same time ensuring that the court process is fair and comprehensive.  That balance is not always easily struck,” he said.

 “Any fair system needs to pay appropriate attention both to ensuring a reasonable level of consistency but also allowing for the flexibility to take into account all relevant factors,” he continued.

The Chief Justice said that a review of the procedures of the civil courts is well under way and should report by the end of next year.

He also announced that for the first time the Supreme Court will become an e-court – with the electronic filing of appeals, submissions, and the various requirements of such appeals.

New and innovative ways of allowing the courts to be more efficient are essential, he said, suggesting that a comprehensive on-line system will represent the official court record, with hard copies only being used to whatever extent necessary or appropriate.  

Australian experience

This method has been adopted with some success by the Australian Federal Courts, he said.

“Perhaps the best analogy is with a road system.  We currently have the equivalent of a poor quality single lane carriageway with many potholes.

"We want to have a modern motorway.  The best way to do this is to build a new motorway while keeping, as best we can, the existing sub-standard roadway operational while the new motorway is under construction,” he continued.

Appropriate

On injury awards and sentencing he said “any fair system needs to pay appropriate attention both to ensuring a reasonable level of consistency but also allowing for the flexibility to take into account all relevant factors, some of which may differ significantly as and between cases which may outwardly appear to be similar.

“I am personally of the view that, provided a proper mechanism can be devised, flexible guidelines have the potential to give greater assurance to the public that there is consistency and that any variations in sentences can be explained by differing factors properly taken into account.

Rigid guidelines

“The experience of countries which introduced overly rigid guidelines on sentencing has not been particularly positive, but that is not to say that an appropriate and well worked out system might not contribute significantly to achieving the difficult balance between consistency and the flexibility necessary to take into account all relevant factors," he said.