Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This Bill certainly improves the current arrangements whereby the Government, and more particularly the Cabinet, has complete control of all judicial appointments. The suggestion that the judicial appointments council be composed of members selected from a broad spectrum of society is an interesting one and it would certainly improve democratic accountability. Since the current arrangement is wholly imbalanced, with seven out of ten representatives with a legal background on the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, some input or recommendation from a proposed candidate's peers or colleagues as to his or her merit and integrity could be beneficial. In this regard, I suggest that a representative from the Bar Council or Law Society remain on the board of ten but that this influence be balanced by the remaining ten members, representing civil society.

The proposed process provides a more even distribution and balance of power between the three arms of the State – Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. The proposed arrangement is more faithful to the separation of powers principle enshrined in the Constitution than the current one, which excludes the Legislature almost completely from the process. Unfortunately, the nomination of judicial candidates is just one example of this imbalance of power in our political processes whereby the power of the Executive – I mean the Cabinet rather than the Government – has been increased and concentrated at the expense and to the detriment of the power of the Legislature, which includes the entire Dáil, even Opposition Deputies. The delicate system of checks and balances intrinsic to the separation of powers principle has been gradually eroded within the current political system.

A final example of what can go wrong when judicial appointments are political and when judges are too close to political parties is the case of Fr. Niall Molloy's murder. Mr. Justice Frank Roe was appointed President of the Circuit Court just before Richard Flynn was tried for the manslaughter of Fr. Niall Molloy in 1986.

Judge Roe was a personal friend of Richard Flynn, the defendant. Despite this fact, he first decided to assign the case to himself, in an extreme abuse of the power that came with his role as President. He then withdrew the case from the jury after three and a half hours, without letting it consider any of the evidence and directed it to acquit. One eye witness reported that the then deputy leader of Fianna Fáil, Brian Lenihan Snr., was in the room which was the scene of the murder.

Although I welcome the eventual appointment of Dominic McGinn, senior counsel, to review the Garda investigation into the Fr. Niall Molloy murder and hope the facts and background to the case, to include its strongly political background, can finally be ascertained and that the family of Fr. Niall Molloy may gain some justice and peace, it is yet again a shame that this decision to review has only come after a delay of almost 30 years. If the Minister, Deputy Alan Shatter, would only decide matters based on his ministerial responsibilities to justice rather than on political motivations and his own political survival, we might see more decisions based on transparency and accountability and fewer underhand tactics employed such as delay and confusion, dismissal of allegations, discrediting of real victims such as whistleblowers and the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC, and misrepresentation of law and fact. These tactics never work on a permanent basis, as the Minister is now discovering to his peril. The truth generally comes out.

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