Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 14, between lines 5 and 6, to insert the following:"(d) in section 16 by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection 5:

"(5) Where more than one judicial office in the same court stands vacant, or in advance of more than one vacancy arising in the same court, at the request of the Minister, the Board shall submit to the Minister the name of each person who has informed the Board of his or her wish to be considered for appointment to judicial office and shall recommend to the Minister the names of three persons in respect of each vacancy, and will make public the reasons for recommending these names.".".

This is a timely Bill. Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 are being taken together because obviously they are linked. I hope the Minister will agree that these amendments represent an excellent opportunity to inject two badly required elements into the appointment members of the Judiciary, which sadly has become, or perhaps always was, an inherently political process. These amendments provide an excellent opportunity to take the politicisation out of the appointment of members of the Judiciary and add two improvements to that process. One is to appoint members of the Judiciary on the basis of merit and the second is to inject a much greater degree of transparency into the process which is greatly needed and overdue.

I was pleased recently to have an opportunity to support a Bill sponsored by Deputy Ross, which strove to achieve the same ends. His was a proposed amendment to the Constitution, but I believe this is a very obvious and logical way to achieve essentially the same outcome.

Perhaps to lend weight to the argument and to illustrate that this is not simply something that is being sought from members of the Opposition or perhaps some more silent Members on the Government benches, it is also something the Judiciary itself is seeking. The Chief Justice, Ms Justice Susan Denham, whom I believe everybody in this House would hold in extremely high regard, has explicitly warned about how politicised the appointment process of the Judiciary continues to be. I am sure the Minister will be well aware that in a report by the judicial appointments review committee in January, which essentially my amendment addresses, the Chief Justice stated: "It is increasingly clear that the relative success of the administration of justice in Ireland has been achieved in spite of, rather than because of the appointment system." That came from the most senior member of the Judiciary in the land.

The report further stated:

The key to reforming the judicial appointments system rests on reform and development of the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board.

The number of candidates for a single judicial post submitted by the Judicial Appointments Board for Governmental decision should be reduced to three. Where there are multiple vacancies in a Court, the number of candidates should be increased by no more than the number of additional vacancies.

That is precisely what my amendment No. 4 would achieve. If the Minister accepts it, it would without any delay ensure that instead of the ludicrous situation where nine nominees are suggested to Government, the Government would only have a choice of three from which to select.

The establishment of the court of civil appeal is obviously long overdue. We should use this opportunity to provide genuine reform in how the new judges of this court will be appointed and further vacancies for other courts. The Irish legal and judicial system is not comparable to that in many other jurisdictions in Europe and around the world. However, relatively similar common law systems exist in Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales and Australia, all of which have judicial appointments commissions. There are now judicial appointments commissions in the United Kingdom jurisdictions of Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales, while the Commonwealth Attorney General of Australia is statutorily obliged to consult widely with his state counterparts and legal colleagues.

My amendment, which would essentially echo what emerged from the report of the judicial appointments review committee in January, would be a really important, constructive and reforming stepping stone to a radically reformed appointments process. I believe it is urgently needed, as do members of the Judiciary, including the most senior judge in the land. We would end up with, first, a system that is based on appointment on the basis merit and, second, as I said at the outset, a much more transparent system because my amendment would require that an explanation of the three nominees would be provided to Government for consideration.

Further to that, my amendment No. 5 would require that the Government would be required within 14 days in advance of his or her appointment to disclose a report indicating the reason it has recommended a certain person for appointment to the bench or promotion from one court to another.

All of this is logical and tallies with the Government parties' commitment before the last general election to introduce much more transparency, end cronyism and take the politicking out of these sorts of appointments. It was a clear commitment regarding State boards and so on. It makes sense that we completely depoliticise the Judiciary. I believe we have an excellent Judiciary that has, by and large, served the State with some distinction. However, it is important that the process of appointment is beyond reproach and is entirely independent, and does not come under any form of political intervention, pressure or interference. I believe this is the way to achieve it. It is very clear that the Chief Justice also shares that view, as does the independent review body which made its recommendations in January.

Being new to the brief, and with the zeal of a newly aligned Cabinet and a regenerated junior ministerial bench as of today, I hope the Minister will seize the opportunity to introduce a radical and yet long-overdue reform. I look forward to her response. I hope she will accept these two amendments.

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