Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I apologise to the Chair. My questions are as follows, if that is helpful. Leaving the issue of standards aside, there is a question of independence regarding how interviews and promotions are conducted. There is a question about the balance of the independence of the legal profession as well. For example, and this is something that can be worked out in the eventual Bill, who is it thought should be interviewing prospective judges? Will it be sitting judges of the courts in which they practice? Who will it be and how would one go through a process in order to maintain, as my colleague Senator Ward noted, the independence of judges, against a selection process where there may very well be personality clashes and in the context of which a whole range of other things may arise? How do we protect the independence of both the legal profession and judicial members in those circumstances?

The ranking situation is quite interesting because two totally different types of candidate can come through, with different practice backgrounds and very different skills. If it was a question of ranking me against the Chair, for example, it is obvious that we are completely different people and are not necessarily comparable. How does Mr. Herrick conceive of ranking people with very different skill sets and experiences? Senator McDowell alluded to trying to achieve an overall balance on the court. I will leave it at that because I do not want to take up too much time. I will come back in if there is more time.