Mr. Liam Herrick:

I thank the Chairman. I thank the committee members for inviting us to be with the committee today. As the Chairman has already indicated, I am joined by my colleague, Ms McLoughlin-Burke, who is procedural rights fellow with the ICCL.

As members of the committee will know, the ICCL is an independent human rights organisation which has played an active role in public discourse on matters of law, policy and human rights since its foundation in 1976. In particular, our perspective is to ensure that Irish law and practice is compliant and meets the standards of the constitutional rights and the rights set out in international human rights law. Our founders include the late Kader Asmal, professor of law at Trinity College Dublin, the late Mr. Justice Donal Barrington, a member of the Supreme Court, and Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the administration of justice has been a particular priority issue of the ICCL in its work. In 2007, we published a report, Justice Matters, which was a comprehensive analysis of the issues of independence and accountability with regard to the Irish judicial system and we have made a number of submissions on the question of judicial reform over recent decades.

The judicial appointments process in Ireland has been a point of contention and controversy in recent years and the ICCL believes that a deficit in formality and transparency in the system has impacted on public confidence in the Judiciary. In that context, we strongly welcome the proposals in the proposed Bill to introduce clear and transparent criteria by which appointments would be made, and we share the Government's stated objective of promoting diversity and ensuring that the Judiciary is one which is truly representative of the people of Ireland. Although the ICCL recognises that the proposed Bill marks a significant improvement on the preceding appointment process, we are concerned that some of the provisions fall short of international best practice. In preparing our submission on the proposed Bill, we relied on and referred to international standards derived from a number of treaties, including international human rights treaties, the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights.

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