Roundtable Discussion with President Matej Accetto
On 28 May, the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University, in association with the Trinity Centre for Constitutional Governance, UCD Sutherland School of Law and the Supreme Court of Ireland, hosted a roundtable discussion with Professor Matej Accetto, President of the Constitutional Court of Slovenia. The roundtable featured contributions from President Accetto and Mr Justice Brian Murray, Judge of the Supreme Court, on "common law and civil law approaches to constitutional review". The event was chaired by Mr Justice John MacMenamin, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, and was attended by other members of the judiciary, including Mr Justice Gerard Hogan and Mr Justice Maurice Collins of the Supreme Court, and Ms Justice Úna Ní Raifeartaigh of the Court of Appeal and recently elected to the European Court of Human Rights.
Speaking on the success of the event, Dr Tom Hickey, Associate Professor in Law at DCU commented:
"President Accetto is not only an esteemed judge of the Slovenian Constitutional Court, but also an esteemed scholar of comparative constitutional law, having studied and worked in universities such as Harvard, Cambridge, Lisbon and Tokyo. His paper was particularly insightful, shedding light on the similarities and differences between constitutional review in civil and common law countries. Mr Justice Brian Murray also brought great scholarly insight to bear, complementing his vast experience as a lawyer and judge. His paper was fascinating, and we academics are delighted to learn that it is to be published on the new Supreme Court website. We were also glad to have the insights of Judges MacMenamin, Hogan, Collins and Ní Raifeartaigh, as well as academic friends from the University of Maynooth, from the Centre for Constitutional Governance at TCD, and from the Sutherland School of Law at UCD. This kind of judicial-academic engagement has become more and more common over the past few years in Ireland, which I think is a very good thing. We in DCU wish to thank the Chief Justice for offering the event to us, and look forward to more collaborations of this kind in the future."
