Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I read with interest yesterday the Minister's commentary on populist politicians, and his tut-tutting that the State could not withstand the modern penchant for jettisoning rules of due process for short-term political gain. I have to hand it to him - he has some neck to say something like that and to come in here with something that is probably the worst example of a political soap opera played out at the expense of the common good, whose consequences will go way beyond the Minister's scheming at Cabinet table. The issues are far too important to be used in this way. It is disgraceful.

We do not need this Bill. We already have a judicial appointments Bill that has just gone through Second Stage in this House with cross-party support. I am sick of talking about judicial appointments. We have dealt with Second Stage and pre-legislative scrutiny, and my office did mountains of work to prepare amendments to Deputy O'Callaghan's Bill, which was pulled at the eleventh hour because there was no money message. Now, on the eve of the Dáil's summer recess, any amount of time is being given to dealing with this Bill although the courts will be going on holiday in a few weeks' time, and after the Government makes appointments to the High Court and Circuit Court, in some instances for vacancies that will not arise until later this year. It is an absolute joke. The only conclusion to be drawn is that it is being done to offset the damage caused by the botched handling of the appointment of former Attorney General to the Court of Appeal. We have a responsibility to ask at what price. Undoubtedly, if this process continues to be rushed in this manner, it will undermine confidence among the Judiciary and the public. More than that, Deputy Wallace is correct. I saw the Minister making gestures but he knows that the Tánaiste approved the prioritisation of the movement of the Coroners' Bill through Cabinet. The Minister sent me a letter saying that he supported it. The Department of Justice and Equality was told to work with us to have that Bill published two weeks ago. It needed to be so as to pass through all Stages prior to the summer recess. I hope to God no woman loses her life in our maternity services in July, August or September, leaving her family to fight the Health Service Executive, HSE, for an inquest. That was a priority of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice and Equality and it is being sacrificed because the officials were used to draft this Bill. That is not good enough. It is debasing a worthy objective and judicial reform. The manner in which it is being handled has undermined the Bill.

We have already tabled amendments to Deputy O'Callaghan's Bill to the effect that there should be a lay chairperson and membership of the judicial appointments commission so we support that position. Like Deputy Wallace, however, I raise my eyebrows at the presence of the Attorney General on this body. I do not see any particular expertise the Attorney General could have. At least in the initial stages the judges on this body will come through a political patronage system. There are political differences emerging in the debate which are worth teasing out. Having a lay majority on the judicial appointments commission is not a question of one in the eye for the Judiciary or the legal profession. It is about a particular view one has of what is the Judiciary. People with a legal background see the appointment of judges as a career move within the system so understandably they believe it should be controlled by their expert peers. That makes sense. Ordinary citizens, however, view things quite differently. They see the role as a social one, acting in the interests of society and the administration of justice, adherence to the legal profession being a secondary consideration. On that basis, it makes sense for judges to be appointed from the society they represent and being alive to its needs. That is critical. Having equal representation on the appointment commission is the best way forward to give both sides their due.

Section 15 of this Bill deals with the experience that the people to be appointed as lay members of the commission will need to demonstrate. Under the initial heads of the Bill, that experience was to be in voluntary, community or social affairs but that has been axed and replaced with expertise and experience, in commerce, finance or administration. I am shocked. What in God's name does experience in commerce or finance have to do with the appointment of judges? It is far more important to have people on the appointments commission with experience on the ground, people who deal with communities members of which are likely to appear before the courts, which are ravaged by criminal activity, who understand the issues that lead people to have a conflict or end up before the courts. That is a really retrograde step. Another retrograde step is the removal of the provision in the original heads that the membership of the commission should be gender balanced and reflect social diversity. That has disappeared. Given the experience of women in some of our courts that should be reinstated.

The proposed senior judicial appointments advisory committee is a joke. It is made up of the Chief Justice, the Attorney General, the chairperson and perhaps also - the language is not clear - the Minister. Section 23 of Deputy O'Callaghan's Bill, dealing with senior appointments, was far more sensible than the suggestion presented here because it empowered the commission to make a recommendation to the Government for such senior appointments to be based on merit, in other words on the same principle of all of the judicial appointments. The make-up of this senior judicial appointments advisory committee is too political. It is unnecessary. It sidelines the commission from the important appointments and there is no clear reason that the commission cannot perform this function and that the Minister has to get involved at all. They are fatal flaws.

I am, however, sympathetically inclined toward those who contributed to the debate saying that in many ways this is a false debate, that it has been hyped up and is much ado about nothing. The key problem for citizens is not judicial appointments, but their ability to access and achieve justice in this State. That task is far bigger than judicial appointments. I am broadly sympathetic to those who say there are some outstanding individuals who serve the Judiciary remarkably well. I go to court quite often and on many occasions I am absolutely gobsmacked by the calibre, which is very impressive. When it goes wrong, and those judges are not up to scratch, it goes very very wrong and there is absolutely nothing in place to deal with those individuals. There is a far more urgent need to legislate for a judicial council than for this commission. It is not good enough that we are rushing this through. It has been on the cards for a long time. It is an open secret that there is a judge in the District Court who, realising the shortage of judges who could speak Irish, put himself forward on that basis although he did not have a word of Irish.

He got the job on that basis and once he was in it, having lied to get it, there was nothing they could do. He was still there. Terrible things are going on in the family law courts behind the scenes, with lives being destroyed without any proper scrutiny or legislation. We need an urgent intervention and oversight of our courts system. I am desperate to see judicial reform, but it must be proper and comprehensive. In its current form, this Bill is definitely not that. We are doing a disservice to those good members of the Judiciary, the public and those citizens who will come before our courts if we use this issue to make political capital and a political gain. The issues are far more important than that. I do not want to be part of something that debases a very important objective in this way. It leaves a great deal to be desired.

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