Rules update October 2020

Two Circuit Court Rule amendments have been published and one came into operation on September 30th. As usual we have consolidated the rules and formatted them to be easy to read or print (and inserted links to relevant primary legislation and Forms).

Rules update October 2020

Rules update October 12, 2020

Another rule update for Irish practitioners

Two Circuit Court Rule amendments have been published and one came into operation on September 30th. As usual we have consolidated the rules and formatted them to be easy to read or print (and inserted links to relevant primary legislation and Forms).

Here is the breakdown:

First, Order 24 of the Circuit Court Rules has been amended. The new amendment substitutes Order 24 rule 1 to provide that a witness summons duces tecum in relation to an officer of the State may not be issued except by order of the County Registrar. This came into operation on September 30, 2020.

This is our consolidated rule:

Order 24 — Attendance of witnesses

Second is a substantial set of amendments to Order 59 (Family Law), implementing the text of SI 400/2020.

The changes facilitate the operation of Parts 2 and 3 of the Children and Family Relationship Act 2015 which came into operation on the 4th of May 2020 and in particular in relation to applications for retrospective declarations of parentage for children born in the State as a result of donor-assisted human reproduction procedures which took place prior to the commencement of Parts 2 and 3.

We have consolidated these changes and our system will reflect the changes on the evening of October 8, 2020 — the amended Order comes into operation on Friday, October 9. Here is our consolidation:

Order 59 — Family law

A new PD has also issued for the Midlands Circuit: on pre-trial Directions hearings in criminal matters. We have included it below and it came into operation on September 30th.

CC27: Practice Direction on pre-trial Directions hearings in criminal matters

As always — please contact us if you have any questions or would like a free demo!