Local academics appointed to Law Reform Commission

By Kernan Andrews

Two Galwegians, Tom O’Malley and Donncha O’Connell, both academics at NUI Galway, have been appointed to the Law Reform Commission.

Both men have been appointed as part-time commissioners. In the case of Mr O’Connell, he is being re-appointed to the board.

Mr O’Connell is a lecturer in the School of Law at NUIG, teaching constitutional law and European human rights

on undergraduate programmes. He was dean of the faculty of law at the university from 2005 to 2008 prior to the establishment of the College of Business, Public Policy & Law.

Donncha has also participated as a Council of Europe expert in several judicial training programmes in Croatia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan and has worked in a similar capacity in other countries with the Netherlands Helsinki Federation, and INTERIGHTS.

Tom O’Malley is a senior lecturer in law and a practising barrister specialising in judicial review. He holds three first-class honours degrees from NUIG as well as the LLM degree from Yale University. He was a graduate fellow at Yale Law School in 1986-1987 and since then has taught at NUIG. He is currently completing a new edition of Sexual Offences: Law Policy and Punishment which was first published in 1996 and is also working on casebook entitled A Common Law of Sentencing.

The Government also appointed Mr Justice John Quirke as president of the Law Reform Commission. Marie Baker, a practising barrister, specialising in land law and family law, has also been appointed to the board.