Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In principle, I welcome the Bill. The idea of reforming the courts in this way is welcome. I wish to make a general point about courts of this sort regarding the judges themselves. I do not know how judges for these cases are chosen but I gather that it is left to the president of each court to decide how they are allocated and to which cases they are assigned. It is obviously very sensitive in the case of children but I ask the Minister, and I do not think it is a case for political sensitivity, if he intends to reform the way this nation appoints judges. There is a mood abroad, and it is one in which I believe, that the appointment of judges has been a form of abuse or political patronage for many years. It is very easy to point the finger at the last Government which abused its political patronage in an utterly ruthless way to stuff the courts with its prodigies. The District Court was certainly the worst example of this but it extended to the Circuit Court, the High Court and the Supreme Court.

It has often been possible for people in the Law Library to identify the political allegiances of judges in a way which discredits the whole Judiciary. It is not necessarily true in all cases but there is a regrettable tendency for politicians, of all parties, to nominate to the High Court, the Supreme Court and the District Court those who have been loyal to their own parties when they get into power. It was very obviously true under the last Government and Fianna Fáil have practised this utterly ruthlessly in the past. In many case, it has regarded the Judiciary as some form of political reward for those who have been loyal to it at election time. I can point out examples galore but I will not do so because the people are not here to defend themselves. There are examples galore of at least one Chief Justice who was a Fianna Fáil candidate - that is not a crime - and has worked for Fianna Fáil at elections and people in other categories who fit into this Bill. The Judiciary is peppered with former Deputies, who allegiance to their political parties has obviously not been a disadvantage to them when they are being considered as possible judicial appointments.

The problem with that up to the mid-1990s was that the appointments were made by the Government without any even veneer of interference or objectivity or any body between the Government, the politicians and the Judiciary to review those appointments in an independent way. Judges were appointed on a nod and wink by Ministers for Justice and by Governments following representations, usually made to them by people who were party loyalists. They may have had the qualifications. In some cases they did while in some cases they did not, but the appointments were certainly made on a political basis and often for political reasons. That was changed in the 1990s because of the Harry Whelehan affair - that was the catalyst which brought it on - and a deal was done initially between Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party to appoint a Judicial Appointments Advisory Board. That board was to give some comfort to those who said that these appointments are nakedly political and was put forward as a cover to shield the Government against that accusation. The problem with the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, JAAB, was that all the people on the board were political appointees, from the Chief Justice down to people who were nominated directly by the Minister for Justice of the day.

When Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Democratic Left came to power in the middle of the Whelehan affair, they adopted a fairly similar Bill, almost identical, and Nora Owen became Minister for Justice. The Judicial Appointments Advisory Board was born, but the problem with that was that it was exactly a cover and no more. Political appointees have got through the process of JAAB very easily and, because of the nature of this process which was purely cosmetic, it enabled Fianna Fáil during that period to put its own nominees happily through this particularly comfortable hoop into positions of great influence. As far as I know, certainly up to last year, the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board had advertised all appointments but had never held a single interview for appointment of a judge, although it has the power. That meant it was a fairly undemanding process to go through. It also meant that those who were favoured, and politically favoured, got through it very easily because the political appointees let them through. That is a cause of great regret in that it means that this is simply a fig leaf which does not allow any serious examination of the appointments of judges.

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