Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Deputies Clare Daly and Jim O'Callaghan have gone through the individual amendments. My name is attached to some of them. At the heart of this is the so-called "lay versus law" dimension about which we seem so perplexed.

I am totally in favour of a more broadly representative section having a say in how judges are appointed. However, there is considerable capacity for political influence being exerted over the lay members who are appointed to this commission. It could be done in a fair way but equally it might not. They may be of a particular political persuasion and might give a political dimension to how the judges are selected.

It is more than likely that there will be five judges on the commission, our proposal was also for five. The Public Appointments Service are selected by Government, the Public Appointments Service select lay members and the Minister has an option after three years to reappoint them for a further three. Do I think that we might have a better chance of getting a non-political, neutral position from a judge that has risen through the ranks and proved his or her self to be exceptionally good at their job - otherwise they would not have risen up through the ranks - that the layman will have a less political dimension and will be less political in their selection process than the judge? I am afraid that I do not. I am very wary of who will end up on it.

Yesterday I asked the Minister where the lack of trust for the legal profession came from. We all know that not every judge is great, but not every teacher is great nor is every builder; there is good and bad everywhere. However, behind the Bill a lack of trust is being displayed towards the Judiciary and I do not accept it. We have been through all this in the Select Committee on Justice and Equality. My understanding of the principle reason behind reforming how we appoint judges was that we should make the process less political and that we should have less political say over what judges are appointed. We know that there has been political influence over the years. However, the judges there bear a huge responsibility in the spotlight.Take a judge who came from Fianna Fáil stock, for instance. Is it likely that after being a judge for some 15 or 20 years, he or she will automatically favour a Fianna Fáil candidate over another? I am not convinced he or she will. The Minister has not explained why the Bill has that dimension running through it, where it is as though we do not really trust the Judiciary.

We had put down several amendments on whether there ought to be a lay chair. I do not agree with Public Appointments Servicehaving an elected chair. We favoured the commission that is being set up being the body to elect the chair. It is rational in any area of life that if a committee is formed, it makes such a decision, having sat around and discussed who among the members will make the best chair. I do not believe that giving the Public Appointments Service the power to elect a lay chair, and making it compulsory that the chair is lay, can be defended. It does not make sense. I am not hung up about whether the chair is lay or legal, I think it should be either and that it should be for the committee itself to appoint that person.

Our big fear, which we expressed at the committee, was for people to be drawn in from sections of society that would not normally get a look in in the area of appointing judges. We put down amendment No. 38 which seeks to remove the line regarding, "processes and procedures for making appointments to public office or to senior positions in public or private sector organisations". As Deputy O'Callaghan said, more often than not, these people are the insiders in society. They are generally the people from an influential and powerful background. We do not think that these are the people we sought for our reformed judicial appointments system. We want people from a broad section of society and to give people who did not have a look in up to now a chance.

People who are well up in the system are almost sure to have a political inclination which defeats the whole purpose.

See this speech in context