Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 26:

In page 12, to delete line 3 and substitute the following:

“(d) the Chief Commissioner of Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission,”.

Although not a member of the Government according to the Constitution, the Attorney General sits at Cabinet and has a close working relationship with the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality. This amendment provides for his or her removal from the Judicial Appointments Commission, with a view to keeping a healthy distance between Government and this first stage of the process when the Judicial Appointments Commission selects and recommends a three person short-list. In any event, the Attorney General as legal adviser to the Government will naturally be involved at the second stage of the process when the Government considers and decides which of the three names to nominate to the President for appointment.

It would be procedurally unnecessary and incorrect to duplicate the Attorney General's involvement at both first and second stages of the process. Both the Law Society and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, in their 2014 submissions as part of the consultation process suggested the removal of the Attorney General for this and other reasons. The ICCL referred to the Attorney General as a political appointee. Replacing the Attorney General with the chief commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, would improve the balance of the commission as the IHREC chief commissioner cannot be regarded as either a wholly legal or a wholly lay person. Initially when we had a balance of six and six plus one, it would bring a bit of extra balance. Given we are looking at getting rid of the smaller subcommittees, the numbers are going to work out a bit different. I still think that getting rid of the Attorney General from this section will help us to reach a good place when we reconfigure the full commission, now that we have voted to get rid of the subcommittees. It adds a welcome human rights perspective to the selection and recommendation process, ensuring that section 42 of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014 is adhered to.

It is a statutory body established by the State in accordance with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014. It has a statutory function to advise the State in regard to compliance with human rights standards, both domestic and international. It is particularly appropriate that its chief commissioner would have input in regard to the appointment of judges, which is a fundamental rule of law issue in any democracy. I refer to the Law Society's submission in March 2017. It stated:

If the new Commission is to be genuinely independent in its function, there should be no reason for the Attorney General, who also sits at the Cabinet table to participate in discussions of the Commission. The Attorney General should give his or her perspective at Cabinet or in the course of discussions with relevant Cabinet members following receipt of recommendations made to Government by the Commission. Furthermore, as the Attorney General is a major purchaser of legal services in the State, there is a risk of conflict of professional interest in the Attorney General being the central element at each stage of the judicial selection process. There is no good reason why the Attorney General must be a member of the Commission. It is not the standard practice in comparable jurisdictions. It diminishes the independence of the Commission and the Government will have the benefit of the advice of the Attorney General at a political level in any event. The Society has one of its central functions an ongoing vigilance for the protection of the independence of the legal profession. When an obvious conflict of interest such as this arises, it is the duty of the Society to challenge it. This is a brand new system and as a result assumptions about the merit of the status quo must be challenged.