Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is indicative of the difficulty we are in; we are moving whatever amendments we have in this category. This is a seven minute slot because we have not spoken but there are multiple different and contradictory amendments. Some are better or worse, and we could rank some of them in a scenario of what we would like. We were somewhat thrown by the public announcement that Sinn Féin has done a deal with the Government. It will come in to save the day for the Government, but that is regrettable. One of the key points highlighted in this whole process was political interference in the appointment of the Judiciary. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Shane Ross, in particular, has made his name on this issue.

The biggest political interference is with regard to the role of the Attorney General. Opposition Deputies on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice and Equality were unanimous that the Attorney General should not be on the judicial appointments body. The Minister for Justice, Deputy Charles Flanagan, has put him back on. That was after the interference of the Attorney General himself in that process when he criticised the committee for making a dog's dinner of things and all the rest of it.

In March, the European Commission expressed concern about the lack of judicial input to the appointments process as originally proposed by the Government. The response of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Shane Ross, at that time was to say that until the Commission understood the history of naked political appointment of judges in Ireland, it was unlikely to grasp the need for radical reform of the process. The Commission's concern was based on paragraph 47 of Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)12 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on judges: independence, efficiency and responsibilities.The paragraph states:

where the constitutional or other legal provisions prescribe that the head of state, the government or the legislative power take decisions concerning the selection and career of judges, an independent and competent authority drawn in substantial part from the judiciary [...] should be authorised to make recommendations or express opinions which the relevant appointing authority follows in practice.

This means that the presence of the presidents of the District and Circuit courts is less desirable rather than fairly obligatory. The amendments that we tried to table, and the one that the Ceann Comhairle thankfully accepted from Deputy Mick Wallace, replaces them and puts them back where they rightfully should be. Let the Attorney General, who slagged off our committee, take note that it was the unanimous view of all of the members that this should happen. We actually made this Bill better on Committee Stage and the Government has now sought on this Stage to come back and undermine our work behind the curve by reimposing the Attorney General.

Paragraph 46 of Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)12 of the Committee of Ministers specifically states that "the authority taking decisions on the selection and career of judges should be independent of the executive and legislative powers". Despite this very clear input, the Government is undermining the independence of the courts from the Executive by re-imposing the Attorney General, who sits at Cabinet. Presumably, the Minister is aware of these decisions. It is very poor. and it goes against what the Irish Council of Civil Liberties, ICCL, and the Law Society said. It also goes against what has happened in other jurisdictions. It is a dog's dinner trying to put this back now; have a mess of different contradictory proposals.

We will support Deputy Jim O'Callaghan's proposal as being, by far, a greater improvement in respect of more serious reform in this area than what the Government has tabled. I refer to smaller, more manageable numbers - 11 versus the Government's ridiculous 17. How could there be a commission of 17 people? The appointment of the lay people by non-governmental organisation, NGO, nominees rather than the Public Appointments Service, PAS, is a very positive measure. We had that in some of our amendments on Committee Stage. The fact that the Attorney General is not on it is, of course, a positive as far as we are concerned. What we had sought to do in various different ways was to respect the wishes of the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality to keep the Attorney General off and put the presidents of the District and Circuit Courts back on. We also sought to put one extra person back on to have balance and a 50:50 split - this was ruled out of order - and for the commission to appoint its own chairperson.

That chairperson was to have a casting vote, which I thought would have been a better way of doing things. It seems that we are going through the motions now if a deal has been done, and the Government's mess, which goes against what we agreed at committee, has been accounted for behind closed doors.

I wish to make a point about sentencing guidelines and whatever has been agreed between the parties in return for a vote on this matter. There is an issue in terms of how much of a guideline on sentencing the Oireachtas can provide to the Judiciary without interfering with the separation of powers, but it is utterly regrettable that it is being introduced into this scenario. I also wish to put on record the contradiction between the unseemly haste at which this is going through - and it is only window dressing because the final decision rests with the Government anyway, ensuring that political interference remains intact - and the fact that the Judicial Council Bill, the product of 20 years of discussion and which could deliver real reform, has been languishing in the Seanad since November. There is no haste to bring that Bill before this House, even though it could ensure meaningful reform and make some real difference. This system falls far short of the type of radical reform the Minister was lauding previously.

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