Victory for Shane Ross over naming judges
In what will be seen as a major win for the Independent Alliance, the move will see the selection of judges at various levels taken out of the hands of the government of the day. In future, it will be the responsibility of a judicial appointments commission.
Driven by Transport Minister Shane Ross, the proposal has met with significant opposition from within Fine Gael and in legal circles, but the Irish Examiner has confirmed that Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald will bring the bill before Cabinet today for approval.
A senior Government source has confirmed that it will be published “shortly afterwards”.
While the programme for government contains a commitment to reform the judicial appointments system, there has been much internal wrangling between Fine Gael and Mr Ross over the issue. At one stage, Mr Ross said he and his colleagues would block all future appointments to the bench until the matter was dealt with.
However, following agreement with Ms Fitzgerald and expressions of support from the Law Society of Ireland, the Government approved a General Scheme of the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill in December 2016.
The new commission will have a lay chairman and also a lay majority. The bill will replace the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board (JAAB) with a Judicial Appointments Commission.
According to documents seen by the Irish Examiner, “the Commission will have a dual role of making recommendations to Government for appointments, and making longer term contributions to the development of the system of judicial appointments”.
The bill will also reduce the number of recommendations coming from the Commission to three, as opposed to the minimum of seven forwarded by the JAAB under the Courts and Court Officers Act 1995.
“It will also amend the composition of the Board (now Commission) in line with the Government commitment to increase lay membership (and appoint a lay chairperson) to be appointed through an open appointment process,” the document adds.
It is understood that the bill will include ‘promotions’ of serving judges and appointments as Chief Justice / President of a Court in the new appointments process - these are currently outside the remit of the JAAB.
It will also provide for a dedicated support resource for the new Commission to administer a more comprehensive process of selection and recommendation.
The Government recently blocked a Fianna Fáil private members bill on judicial appointments, leading to angry exchanges at the Justice Committee.
Opposition TDs, including Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan, who sponsored the bill, were severely critical of Ms Fitzgerald, who was present to represent the Government.
The Government decided that, since the private members bill, which would have reformed the system of appointing judges, involved a potential charge on the exchequer, it could not proceed.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny declined to supply what is known as a “money message” — meaning that any charge on the exchequer is not significant — and so the bill could not proceed.
