Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will share 20 minutes with Deputy Mick Barry. Deputy Howlin offered me a good lead-in to my opening comments by, once again, raising the spectre of populism, the evil it represents and the need to resist it at all costs. Populism is the danger we are facing, whatever it might be. "Populism" is an amorphous term if ever there was one.

We are dealing with a problem of a judicial system dominated by a very small, self-perpetuating elite. The judicial system and the barristers are drawn from a very small pool, largely controlled by the Honorable Society of King's Inns, about which I learned a bit while chatting to somebody on the phone today. It was set up by King Henry VIII to ensure we controlled access to the Bar but also, initially, to keep Catholics out. This is the only place one can become a barrister. Judges are not exclusively barristers but they are overwhelmingly so. The honourable society is the only place that trains barristers but there is no statutory basis for it in any law made democratically by us. It literally owes its origins to Henry VIII and was set up on an exclusivist basis to ensure that a small, well-vetted elite controlled who got to be a barrister and who was kept out. They still do it and inside the Honorable Society of King's Inns there is another secret society whose members are known as "benchers". There is an inner bench and an outer bench and anyone who is made a judge automatically becomes a member of the benchers. They have secret dinners but nobody ever finds out about them, even though they are held regularly. Cherie and Tony Blair are members, incredibly, and there are other interesting people involved. In order for a person to be called to the Bar, a bencher has to sign off on it and in both the old and new systems, the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board and the appointments commission, I have counted five who are members of the benchers. These include the Chief Justice, the President of the Court of Appeal, the President of the High Court and the Attorney General, who automatically becomes a member. One can be mandatorily made a member of this group, even if one does not want to be, which is quite extraordinary. It begs a serious question about the independence of the Judiciary because some judges may be junior to barristers in the benchers. They might socialise together and chat before cases but when a barrister is not a member of the benchers, there is serious potential in this secret society to corrupt the balance in the hearing of cases. The group can disbar barristers and there is no statutory basis for it.

This is how the upper echelons of the legal system in this country work. I welcome the thrust of the Bill and the Minister has identified a completely unacceptable situation, namely, that one third of judges are directly connected to, and are cronies of, the political parties. Even in the past few weeks, close connections of Fine Gael have been appointed as judges. The Constitution requires that the Government appoints judges but there is a big problem with this. I find it hard to understand how people can talk about the separation of powers and the independence of the Judiciary with a straight face. Deputy Jim O'Callaghan asked how we could possibly impugn the Judiciary and the way it behaves but I think we can impugn it. We can hold its members to account and criticise decisions they make and we bloody well should.

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