Foreword

• Date: 01 January 2018
• Author: Mr Justice Max Barrett

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Foreword

Perhaps the greatest pleasure of being a judge is the privilege of hearing, on a daily

basis, very clever arguments made by very clever lawyers as to why their clients’ legal

position is correct and why those opposed to their clients are in the wrong. ose

who write law books and legal journal articles play a vital role in oering a learned

environment within which judges are enabled to separate the wheat from the cha

when such arguments are made, to recognise where the law is trending and to

identify the best answer in cases where oen there is no easy answer. Academics

tirelessly working away in universities and other institutions of higher learning, as

well as lawyers more directly involved in practice (such as the contributors to this

edition of the Hibernian Law Journal), should never underestimate the power of

law books and legal journal articles to inform and shape the outcome of real-life

cases in our courts of law. A striking feature of the articles that fall to be included in

this edition of the Hibernian Law Journal is the breadth and depth of knowledge of

the contributors and also the incredibly internationalised legal order within which

our domestic legal system now sits and operates. It is doubtful that there was ever

a time, since the dawn of civilised society, when one person could know all of the

law; however, anyone who reads the articles in the pages that follow can be satised

that they will know a great deal more of, and about, the law and certain legal issues

presenting than they did before sitting down to read.

In Burning Bridges? e Court of Justice and the Autonomy of the EU Legal Order,

Rachel O’Sullivan puts forward the intriguing hypothesis that the continuing

development by the Court of Justice of the European Union of the autonomy of

the European Union’s legal order has become ‘self-defeating’ and now damages

the legal and political interests of the European Union. A striking feature of many

cases now coming before the High Court is how many of them feature a European

Union law dimension, and how oen the making of a reference under Article 267

TFEU is now urged upon the court. So it is interesting and helpful to encounter an

article that forensically interrogates any case law of the Court of Justice, especially

in as interesting a context as Ms O’Sullivan examines.

In e Fallacy of the Cyberspace Fallacy: A Re-Examination of Cyberlibertarianism,

Barry O’Fiacháin explores certain diculties that can arise when it comes to

eective regulation of the internet. is judge is old enough to remember when

there was no internet, no mobile phones and even no home computers. e sheer

pace of technological change in just a few decades has been breath-taking and, as

Mr O’Fiacháin shows, requires, amongst other matters, a fundamental re-think as

to the nature and objects of law, as well as the reach and form of regulation. One

learning constantly brought home to judges in their daily work is the extent to

which law depends on the consent of the governed and the need for a social contract