It is to the credit of the Irish Supreme Court that in almost all circumstances, its rulings can be read and mostly understood by a person with no legal training. Unfortunately, this is often mitigated by the fact that the court tends to issue rulings that are so long and so detailed that very few people will ever take the trouble to read them, which means that it’s often left to journalists and other commentators to summarise them and explain their meaning.
In the case of yesterday’s landmark ruling on the meaning of the family, both of these trends are in evidence: The controlling opinion of the Chief Justice, Donal O’Donnell, is quite easy to understand – once you read through the fully 89 pages that contain it.
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