Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

My proposed amendments are amendments Nos. 84 and 85 which are in this grouping of amendments. Their purpose is to remove the notion that the chair has to be a lay person. We are proposing a situation in which the chair will be picked by the committee. There is too much focus in the Bill on always having a lay majority. For example, the proposed amendments to sections 18(5), 19(2) and 19(5) propose to remove the requirement that the quorum be made up of a lay majority and that the procedures committee and any other sub-committee have a lay majority. There may well end up being a quorum with a lay majority and a procedures committee and a subcommittee with a lay majority but I do not see the need to require this in advance in legislation.

The Bar Council submission refers to the committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and its statement that the procedure for the appointment of judges should be transparent and independent in practice. The authority taking the decision on the selection and career of judges should be independent of the Government and the Administration. In order to safeguard its independence, rules should ensure that its members are selected by the Judiciary and that the authority decides itself on its procedural rules. There is deliberately too much focus in the Government's approach, both publicly and in these kind of legislative amendments, on promoting a populist lay-versus-law tension which serves the Government well in distracting the media and public from the fact that Government control of judicial appointments may be strengthened by this Bill. The lay-versus-law focus in these sections also seems to have the aim of polarising membership of the commission.