E63 The Fifth Court

With two referendums (*see note below) looming, hosts Mark Tottenham BL and Peter Leonard BL invited two top law academics to studio to discuss the issues involved. Deirdre McGowan of TU Dublin and Maebh Harding of UCD are two of the authors of a book, 'Family Law in Context', a textbook for those wishing to study the latest developments in family law. Before the two women discuss the referendums they give an update on developments in family law in Ireland (e.g. very few people seek nullity any more). They say that a 2 year wait for divorce is still too long. And they discuss surrogacy, recently highlighted by the 'Rosanna Davidson case'.

The hosts also discuss three cases from the Decisis.ie casebook

• A case about the wording of a will involving alternate executors
• A very long running case involving the spraying of commercially grown apples by a potato farmer adjoining the apple farm.
• A planning case about the claimed overshadowing of a passive solar house and the role of an expert in his own case.

*P.S. Scholars often use referenda as the plural for referendum. This choice is a hypercorrection—it may sound like proper Latin, but it is not. Referendums is always the correct choice. However, we maintain that there is value in using referendums for multiple events and referenda for multiple propositions.

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