Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on this important legislation, which was very laborious in its birth, had a long gestation and on which we anxiously awaited the outcome. I agree with many of the points made by the previous speaker, but I want to warn about a couple of issues that cannot be remedied in a small country. No matter what board comes up for renewal, in what capacity it comes up or on what basis an interview board is set up in this country, it is a small country and there is no way we can be certain that nobody on the board knows the person who is being interviewed for appointment. It cannot be done in a small country. Neither can it be guaranteed that they do not know their relatives or something about them.

I have the highest respect for the Judiciary and the need to keep the separation between it and the political system because of our constitutional requirements. That must not change, because if there is any movement towards change it would give rise to a problem that would manifest itself in early date. Like many of us in this House, I have been before most judges. I have been impressed by many of them. I found the judges of the High Court, Supreme Court and all the other higher courts to be exemplary in the way they discharged their duties. I would be the first to say that. Occasionally, in some of the lower courts one would raise questions about decisions taken or the basis of the decisions taken, which could be on whether a person liked politicians. For instance, I have been a witness in a case where a judge refused to allow the witness to speak on behalf of a defendant. I know as much about this system as they know about the system in that regard. A witness is a witness. Whether he or she is a public representative or not, he or she is entitled to be a witness. I have seen various witnesses in courts discharge themselves admirably and I have seen witnesses discharge themselves dubiously as well. We would ordinarily expect to be in a position to quiz them as to their authenticity and so on, and it might not always work. I remember being told by a judge that the court was not a political arena, to which I had to respond that I was not there in a political capacity, I was there as a witness, a distinction that has to be observed.

In the system that now prevails there is no way that we can be certain that we have taken all the knots out of the woodwork in the course of our work. It was a good system heretofore which worked well generally. There was the odd one here or there, but sure there is the odd one in this House from time to time and I ask how they got in here, and they could say the same about us. The point is that in a small country it is well nigh impossible to get an interview board at any level whereby somebody who is being interviewed does not know somebody who knows those carrying out the interview. It is not possible to do it. For example, they might know the school they went to. They all know that, and there is no use in pretending otherwise. Despite the fact that this was a long drawn out debate, some of the debate was well placed and some of it was not. We have to depend on two things in our system: the integrity of the judicial system and its separation from the political system. There must be a strict observance of that division at all times.

In the past, I and I am sure many other people in this House have challenged whether somebody was stepping over the system and wandering into each other's territory. It is not possible to do that. It is not possible for the Members of this House to sit in judgment on every judgment either. There may be judgments that we can question and that the public will question, but we cannot go through every case. It is not possible to do that. In fact, it is a dangerous thing. The courts should not be looking behind them in the rear-view mirror wondering whether or not something would meet the approval of the political group. That is not the way the system works. It is not supposed to work that way and it should never be that way. Let us hope that this system irons out some of the perceived kinks that were in the system. I say "perceived" because there are always explanations as to why different decisions were made. We could all raise questions, but the fact of the matter is that we have to respect the integrity of each other's positions and the importance of the Constitution in this country. We look across the water at our nearest neighbour, which does not have a constitution - it has a different system there. We do have a Constitution here which must be strictly observed whereby the State and the judicial system are completely separate and independent.

Dependence on the integrity of this system is important to every citizen, whoever it may be, whether he or she is an influential or important person or of no importance at all as far as the general public are concerned, but people are entitled to their day in court. They are entitled to justice, in so far as they can get it, but what they get in court is the law, in many cases, as opposed to justice. We recognise that if the law says a particular application must be made in a particular way, that is the way it is going to be. That is where solicitors differ. Some solicitors say we can change that, and some lawyers say they can challenge that. Sometimes they win and sometimes they do not. That is as it should be as well.

In the final analysis, I hope this works well. I also hope that people recognise that we are a small country, and everybody knows everybody else in some way, shape or form. It is impossible to avoid that. I hope we will learn to live with the new system, get the benefit from it and as a result get improved stature for the system - both the system of politics and the judicial system, and that both will grow in strength.

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