Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sure you would not turn it down.

I thank the Minister. This is an area that requires reform and we all understand and accept that. The Bill certainly goes in that direction. It is welcome. It is a vast improvement on where we have been up to now. The perception has been that it has been a closed shop. People with obvious connections got into positions that perhaps they would not have got into had they not had such connections. This is what is at the heart of this. It is to come up with a reform process that can deliver a very fair and exact way in which we can appoint our judges and stand over it. There is recognition that while the JAAB process has served us to some extent it has had failings and shortcomings. It is recognition of this that brings us to the Bill today.

The new judicial appointments commission having an equal number of lay and judicial members is a vast improvement. We were looking for balance in the past. A former Member, Shane Ross, had a long battle when he wanted to see a majority of laypeople in the positions. This had merit and it is something that perhaps we can revisit again as the debate continues. Having a lay chair and a majority of lay members of a board, commission and selection committee would be useful. It would certainly remove that perception of bias or the well connected being looked after. It is something that has to be considered further.

I understand the Chief Justice will chair the commission. There are opportunities and the Minister mentioned the deliberations we had at the committee. One of the recommendations made was that the president of the court to which the appointment is being made would be on the commission, for example, the President of the District Court. This recommendation was worthy and useful. At one point there was a request not to have pre-legislative scrutiny. The pre-legislative scrutiny has paid dividends and has worked well. The Minister will accept this. During Covid we have seen applications for pre-legislative scrutiny to be set aside to rush through Bills. It is a very bad way to do business. It is a means of assessing legislation, making recommendations and teasing out issues at an early stage so improvements can be made that do not then have to be debated and worked out later. It is useful that we had pre-legislative scrutiny.

Three judges will be nominated to go forward for one position. It would be useful if they were ranked as first, second and third choice. It would also be very useful for everyone concerned that if, for whatever reason, and there may be valid reasons, the first choice was not acceptable, the Minister would set out the reasons for it. These are the key issues that could be improved upon in the legislation before us.

We have a lot of work to do to create the diversity the Minister spoke about and which we require to reflect general society in our Judiciary and the legal profession. There has often been a family tradition among solicitors and family law. Naturally enough, people end up following on in succession into the legal profession. This has meant it has been more difficult for people who do not have these connections to become lawyers, solicitors or barristers. This is something that needs to be re-examined. In her speech the Minister made reference to this. We need to work harder to find a way to be more inclusive and to embrace the diversity that, thankfully, exists in our society today.

I understand there are now larger numbers of women taking up the law profession and the Minister is a law graduate herself. This is healthy and good. There are diverse backgrounds among the people throughout the country. We have thousands of people from eastern Europe living in Ireland. We have people from Africa and all over the world living here. There needs to be a huge emphasis on trying to ensure that not only do they get in at the bottom end of various professions, be it medical or heath professions or other professions, but that they can climb. There should be opportunities to advance for people from whatever background they may come. There should be equity built into this to ensure we can progress in a way that will reflect the diversity of our society. We have not had this. While the Bill deals with it to some extent, a lot more needs to be done in this context.

Various organisations have welcomed the Bill and have moved it forward. I understand the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, has welcomed it. It has made a number of recommendations where it feels more work needs to be done. The Bill proposes the Chief Justice be the chair of the judicial appointments commission. It recommends the judge sitting on the commission should be elected by his or her peers, as in international standards. In other words, the chair should be elected by his or her peers rather than appointed by the Minister. This would be appropriate and it is something that could be examined.

It is welcome that this process includes the international courts and will look at such courts, particularly the European Court of Justice, etc. We will make nominations to that through this process. It is also useful to have a system that not only appoints judges coming from the various legal professions but which would also seek to be the conduit with which people would get promotion from the lower to higher courts. Currently the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board has no role in this and it is a big failing.

It is certainly one of the big impressions people have that people advance through the ranks because of the connections they have. Sometimes it is insinuated because of the political connections those people have or had in the past. That may well have been the case at a time but this legislation must put an end to such a practice very clearly. I know we have had our battles over the appointments of former Attorneys General to very senior judicial positions. I certainly feel it is inappropriate for them to move across in that manner and it is something that must be addressed. The Attorney General should not be appointed to the Judiciary automatically or immediately on retirement from the position of Attorney General. There should be a cooling-off period, at least, before that could happen. It should probably be an even stronger provision than that.

The use of the Attorney General in the judicial appointments commission is also problematic. It means the Attorney General is involved in the process of selection of who is to be nominated and is also very close to the people who make the nomination. It is an issue that must be dealt with. It is not appropriate that the Attorney General, as a political appointee, be involved. Again, it creates more of the impression that it is about being well connected, who you know and the circles in which you move. It is a mistake to have it there and the Attorney General should be removed from the process. There is an abundance of legal expertise that could be brought to bear on the process without having the Attorney General as part of it. That will be one of the key improvements that could be made to the legislation brought before us.

In the round we support the direction of the Bill. There will be amendments that we will bring forward on Committee Stage and probably on Report Stage as well, depending on how things go. The Bill is welcome but it is probably 20 years since talk started of changes or improvements being made in the area. We have been slow getting to this stage. The legislation is nonetheless welcome and I certainly hope it moves through the process in the House not at great speed but with judicious examination of all the consequences from it. We must be very careful with this and do it right. It must be right for the future so everyone can have confidence in the Judiciary and move forward.

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