Editorial

• Author: Julia Launders
• Pages: pp vii - x
• Published date: 12 July 2022
• Date: 12 July 2022

vii

Editorial

“Launched at the beginning of a new millennium and in an era of great

condence, the Hibernian Law Journal will reect carefully on the past, comment

critically on the present and look forward with optimism to the future.”

ese words are inscribed in Volume 1 of the Hibernian Law Journal by the

Founding Editors and form the founding ethos of the Journal. Every Volume since

then has aimed to full these three tenets as a means of bridging the crossroads

between the study of law and the practice of law. As training and qualied solicitors,

we embark on a journey of practice, which this Journal aims to enrich with careful

reection on the past, critical comment on the present and hopeful optimism for

the future.

e previous few years alone have called for careful reection, as Ireland grappled

with the outbreak of a global pandemic. At the beginning of 2022, COVID-19

restrictions lied in Ireland and this brought with it a time to reect on the role of

the State during the pandemic. e plethora of regulations, the blurring of law and

guidance as well as the lack of human rights considerations in the decision-making

process were all concerns that arose from the executive’s use of emergency powers.

At the same time, the executive was leading the State during a health pandemic, the

scale and severity of which has not been known within this lifetime.

is prompted the choice of legal topic for this year’s Annual Lecture, Emergency

Powers and the Executive: Reections on the Past and a Vision for the Future. Our

Annual Lecture explored the role of the executive during a state of emergency,

drawing on the experience of the recent past. Warm thanks is extended to

our renowned panel of speakers: Jack Horgan-Jones of the Irish Times, Hugh

O’Connell of the Independent, Dr. David Kenny of Trinity College Dublin, Jim

O’Callaghan TD, and Sinéad Gibney, Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human

Rights and Equality Commission. e panel was exceptionally chaired by President

of the Law Society, Michelle Ní Longáin. It was clear from the talk that whilst

the State’s response came with a multitude of shortcomings, an overwhelming

positive was the State’s ability to respond swily in a time of crisis. Against this

positive, we should ensure these many shortcomings, whether the lack of human

rights principles in the decision-making process or the apparent gap between law

and guidance, do not arise again in the future by learning from this most recent

emergency response. Our Annual Lecture provided such a forum to consider these

lessons by commenting critically on the previous few years, whilst acknowledging

how prone we are in the present to neglect the recent past, as society returns to

‘normal’.