Peter Leonard BL and Mark Tottenham BL are joined by John Freeman BL, author of The Central Bank Acts: A Commentary.

John explains the modern role of the Central Bank of Ireland and how financial regulation has changed since the banking crisis. The discussion examines the increased focus on individual accountability within financial institutions, including how responsibility is assigned to particular executives and decision-makers.

They also consider:

• The Central Bank’s investigative and enforcement powers
• Personal responsibility for regulatory failures
• Fines, suspensions and exclusion from the financial services industry
• The effect of the Zalewski judgment on regulatory hearings
• Fair procedures when the regulator investigates and adjudicates
• Appeals to the Irish Financial Services Appeals Tribunal and the High Court
• The independence of the Central Bank
• The relationship between the Central Bank of Ireland and the European Central Bank
• Why the Central Bank Acts have become so difficult to navigate

John also discusses the work involved in writing a major legal commentary, the growing use of Irish within the legal profession and his interest in French revolutionary legal history.

Before the interview, Peter and Mark review three recent decisions from Decisis.ie:

• An unlawful repossession of a family home resulting in an award of €20,000 in damages
• Planning permission quashed because inadequate provision had been made for children’s play facilities
• A constitutional challenge concerning temporary release and a mandatory minimum sentence for serious drug offences

The Decisis.ie case-law section is sponsored by Charltons Solicitors and Collaborative Practitioners of George’s Street, Dún Laoghaire, specialists in family law, civil litigation, property, wills and probate.

Presented by Peter Leonard BL and Mark Tottenham BL.

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For more than a century, Ireland's judges shaped the country's politics, business, land ownership and legal system.

But who were they?

On Episode 153 of The Fifth Court, Peter Leonard BL and Mark Tottenham BL are joined by legal historian Daire Hogan, former McCann FitzGerald partner, former President of the Irish Legal History Society and author of the remarkable new book The Judges of Ireland 1866–1921.

It's a fascinating conversation about Victorian Ireland, judicial power, Westminster politics, the Four Courts, Home Rule, the birth of the modern legal system and some extraordinary judicial personalities whose influence is still felt today.

Along the way they discuss:

• why 1877 completely changed Irish courts

• the astonishing political influence behind judicial appointments

• why some judges nearly sailed on the Titanic

• how Irish judges were viewed in London

• the origins of today's High Court and Court of Appeal

• what legal history tells us about modern Ireland

Before Daire Hogan joins Peter and Mark, Mark reviews three important recent decisions from Decisis, kindly brought to listeners with the support of Charlton Solicitors & Collaborative Practitioners, specialists in family law, civil litigation, property, wills and probate.

The featured cases include:

• Adoption without parental consent
• Security for costs
• Legal professional privilege and shareholder rights

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 152 of The Fifth Court features a very special guest: Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia

Interviewed by Mark Tottenham BL at Dalkey Book Festival.

This is not just a tech-founder interview. It is a fascinating conversation about law, trust, neutrality, rules, evidence, platform responsibility, AI hallucinations, volunteer communities, public knowledge and why Wikipedia has survived while much of the internet has become angrier, noisier and less trusted.

Jimmy explains why Wikipedia’s neutral point of view matters, why “assume good faith” is more practical than naïve, how Wikipedia deals with vandalism, why AI can invent very convincing false sources, why WikiNews did not work, and why Wikipedia avoided the advertising model that turned so much of the web into clickbait.

Jimmy's cultural recommendation, a book by the late author Ray Bradbury, 'Something Wicked this Way Comes'.

Before the interview, Peter Leonard BL and Mark Tottenham BL discuss three recent cases from the Decisis Casebook, sponsored by Charltons Solicitors & Collaborative Practitioners: the Supreme Court on “no foal, no fee” and conditional fee arrangements; a drink-driving blood-specimen chain-of-custody case; and a murder conviction quashed because of an unbalanced judicial charge to the jury.

00:00 – Intro: Episode 152

01:47 – Decisis Casebook sponsor: Charltons Solicitors & Collaborative Practitioners

02:00 – “No foal, no fee” and conditional fee arrangements

03:29 – Drink-driving conviction and blood-specimen chain of custody

04:34 – Murder conviction quashed over judicial charge to jury

06:03 – Jimmy Wales interview begins

06:43 – Why Wikipedia was hard to compete with

07:58 – Neutral point of view and controversial topics

09:49 – How Wikipedia’s rules developed

11:40 – Volunteer communities and optimism about people

15:12 – Why a wiki works for an encyclopedia, but maybe not for poetry

17:03 – Why Wikipedia is vandal-proof

18:30 – Jimmy Wales: “Queen Elizabeth II, not Henry VIII”

20:07 – Arbitration committees and Wikipedia governance

21:24 – Wikipedia in 150–300 languages

23:31 – What workplaces can learn from volunteers

29:06 – Audrey Tang, Taiwan and digital consensus

32:10 – “Assume good faith”

34:25 – ChatGPT, fake ISBNs and made-up legal cases

37:17 – Law enforcement and good faith

39:03 – Why WikiNews did not really work

44:12 – Constitutional change and institutional deadlock

49:37 – Platforms, publishers and free speech

50:25 – Why Wikipedia did not become an ad machine

53:04 – Jimmy Wales’ book recommendation: Something Wicked This Way Comes

54:33 – Outro

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