FLAC, THE Free Legal Advice Centres, is celebrating 40 years of campaigning for legal rights this coming weekend.
On Saturday, April 25th, President Mary McAleese will join volunteers and past members of Flac in the Mansion House in Dublin to celebrate 40 years of the organisation’s existence.
On Sunday, April 26th, at 7pm Californian poet Jane Hirshfield, in Ireland for the Cúirt festival, along with Irish poet Dennis O’Driscoll, will read their poetry in Brendan Kilty’s James Joyce House on Ushers Quay to celebrate Flac’s anniversary.
Flac began in 1969 when a group of law students – former attorney general David Byrne, Denis McCullough, now a senior counsel, Vivian Lavan, now a High Court judge, Ian Candy, later a High Court judge in Hong Kong – set up a free legal advice centre.
Their aim was to put pressure on the Government to establish a civil legal aid scheme, but they quickly found themselves attempting to deal directly with a huge unmet need.
By 1972, Flac had handled 2,437 cases; two years later this had risen to over 8,000. The Government set up the Pringle committee to examine the issue of civil legal aid.
Flac set up the first community law centre in Coolock in 1975, offering legal advice on a full-time basis to the local community. It now operates independently as the Northside Community Law Centre.
In 1977, the Pringle committee published its report calling for the provision of State-funded legal aid centres, but this was not implemented.
Flac continued to try to meet the need for a free legal aid service. By 1978, it had taken more than 22,500 cases and in 1979, it went on strike to put pressure on the Government to implement the Pringle report.
It also took a landmark case to the European Court of Human Rights on the issue of legal aid.
Johanna Airey was seeking a legal separation from her husband, but could not afford the legal fees. Represented by Mary Robinson, she took a case to the Strasbourg court complaining that Article 6 (1) of the European Convention on Human Rights guaranteed her a right of access to the courts, which she was denied by the lack of legal aid.
She won, forcing the Government to introduce a limited legal aid scheme through the establishment of the Legal Aid Board.
In the 1980s, Flac’s focus shifted from family law, which was now being dealt with by the new Legal Aid Board, to welfare rights, to campaigning for adequate civil legal aid and to analysis of legal developments.
In the 1990s, Flac joined with others to campaign for placing legal aid on a statutory footing, which resulted in the Civil Legal Aid Act 1995. It also worked on consumer credit and social welfare rights and was involved in the campaign to end the constitutional ban on divorce, which was removed in the 1995 referendum.
In 1991, it took a case to the Supreme Court, and eventually to the European Court of Justice, seeking equal social welfare payments for women.
The European Court of Justice ruled that Ireland had breached the EEC Equality Directive of 1985, and the Supreme Court found in favour of the two women who took the case, represented by the firm of Gallagher Shatter. This led to the payment of €350 million in social welfare arrears to women.
In 1997 it took up the case of Lydia Foy who, born with the physical characteristics of a boy, had been diagnosed with gender identity disorder and had gender reassignment surgery in 1992, after which she lived as woman. However, accordingly to her birth certificate, she was legally a male.
In 2007 Flac succeeded in winning the first case in which an Irish law (relating to the registration of births) was declared incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights under the Human Rights Act 2003. The Foy case is currently under appeal to the Supreme Court.
Today Flac continues to take cases on social and equality issues that have a wide resonance. In addition, it has a fellowship programme in public interest law with the University of Washington, Seattle, and has been campaigning for the reform of debt law. To that end, it provides legal support to the Money Advice and Budgeting Service and the Citizens Information Centres.
Its 400 volunteer lawyers continue to provide advice to the public, usually through Citizens Information Centres. It campaigns to improve civil legal aid, promote equality in social welfare provision, to reform debt law and widen the use and awareness of public interest law (the use of the law to promote the public interest).
Its four founders will be in the Mansion House on Saturday, along with volunteers and former volunteers who have contributed to its work over the past 40 years.