Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality his plans to introduce legislation to amend the operation of the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board and increase transparency and accountability in the appointment of members of the judiciary. [6082/13]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that the Constitution provides that judges are appointed by the President on the advice of the Government. Applications are dealt with by the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board which submits to me, as Minister for Justice and Equality, the names of those deemed suitable for appointment. This procedure has been in place since 1995 and, at my request, my Department has been undertaking a review of the process. This review is informed by the ongoing need to ensure and protect the principle of judicial independence and includes consideration of eligibility for appointment, composition of the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, the selection process, accountability in respect of the board's functioning and the need to promote equality and diversity.

I hope to be in a position to consider this further in the coming months. Any proposal to change the current system of appointment would require amendments to the current legislation and would, of course, be a matter for consideration by Government in the first instance.

From a broader reform perspective, the programme for Government undertakes to legislate to establish a judicial council and this commitment is being given expression in the form of the proposed judicial council Bill. As well as providing for the establishment of a judicial council and board that will promote excellence and high standards of conduct by judges, the proposed Bill is aimed at providing a means of investigating allegations of judicial misconduct supported by the establishment of a judicial conduct committee which will have lay representation.

In November 2011, the Judiciary decided to establish an interim judicial council pending the publication and enactment of the proposed Bill. Work on the drafting of the new Bill continues and publication of the Bill is expected later this year.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)
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The Judicial Appointments Advisory Board has been in place since the mid-1990s. Since then there have been 160 appointments, with thousands expressing an interest so there is considerable demand among very capable candidates for these posts. It continues to be the case, however, that judicial appointments are made of people whose track record shows involvement in political parties. Around 30% of appointments at one point according to the Irish Independent were clearly active members of Fine Gael or the Labour Party over the years. We must put an end to that practice.

To promote debate around this topic, I have drawn up a Private Members' Bill where I propose the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board be reformed and would submit to the Minister a short list of three candidates for a post, clearly outlining the reasons that they have been chosen, and the Minister would then select one person, clearly outlining his reasons. That would restore complete faith in how judicial appointments are made and remove any suggestion of political cronyism or jobbery.

That type of culture must end.

I take on board the Minister's point on our previous exchange on this, that, of course, involvement in politics should not exclude one from the Judiciary, but if there was a more accountable system of appointment, it would remove any suggestion that somebody was appointed because of his or her political affiliation.

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy well knows, as I have said this on a number of occasions and I am not saying anything new, despite the way the media have written about them, the appointments that have been made during my period in office have been on merit and merit alone.

For some reason or other, on occasion I tend to be blissfully unaware of persons' political affiliations or which member of the legal profession in the Bar Library or the solicitors' profession might have been engaged with one or other political party. Some tend not to believe this because, apparently, everything we say in this House is supposed to be untrue. Sometimes, after appointments have been made on merit, I have opened the following day's newspaper to read an account of how somebody, of whose political engagements or involvements I had no knowledge, was either the relation of some Member of this House or had some time in the distant past apparently acted as an adviser to a Member of this House in some capacity on some particular issue. I want to state clearly that when the judicial appointments board makes a recommendation regarding appointments my policy is to look through the appointments, consult the Attorney General and make recommendations to Cabinet based on persons' capacities. The truth is on occasions it is difficult as to who should be chosen because often there are a number of persons eminently qualified for the job.

I do not know whether the figure the Deputy gives is correct. I remember reading in some newspaper it had decided, in the context of all the appointments this Government has made, that 30% of the individuals had some political affiliation or other. I do not find that surprising because some lawyers tend to be political active. If one could look at it the other way, if that figure is correct, presumably it was the 30% that would have got the headline, not the 70% of appointments that had no political affiliation. Unfortunately, it is the way it is dealt with.

I do not believe the current system is right. I believe it is time for reform. We must be careful how we do it. We need to ensure that, ultimately, there is accountability to this House for appointments made in the shape of a Minister being accountable, as I am, on behalf of the Government. We cannot have a system whereby, as has been suggested elsewhere, existing members of the Judiciary and representatives of the legal profession would themselves simply select the next lot of members of the Judiciary because there would be no political democratic accountability of any nature. The difficulty with such lack of accountability - I am not suggesting any current judge would do this - is that particular group making appointments may make appointments of persons who they know better than others.

We must be careful in how we proceed. I am looking forward to getting the result of the departmental internal efficient deliberations and the suggestions that have come to me and I am giving thought to creating a consultative process around that before we move it forward. I am not sure simply producing a Bill like a rabbit out of a hat is necessarily the way to go because all sides in this House must be comfortable with any changes we might implement in this area.

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Briefly, we are out of time.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome much of what the Minister says.

Acknowledging, first, that the status quo is not acceptable, we need to get to the stage where the Judiciary is clearly fully independent and, in terms of the selection or appointment procedure, is fully accountable. I ask the Minister to take a look at my Private Members' Bill. It is merely a contribution. I do not volunteer that it has all the answers, but my party has engaged in consultation with NGOs and members of the legal profession on it. I would ask the Minister to consider our proposals as a contribution in this regard.

Let us not kick this to touch. As the Minister will be aware, in terms of the judicial council and in terms of the issue of a sentencing council, clear guidelines and a clear framework needs to be given to judges in the decisions they make, while making allowances for flexibility on a case-by-case basis. All of those matters can be addressed.

My party has put on the table proposals regarding the reform of the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, such as narrowing the numbers that are to be short-listed for presentation to the Minister, providing clear explanations for decisions taken and likewise, that the Minister provide clear explanations for decisions he makes. Is that a way forward?

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I am not saying the status quo is not acceptable because all members of the Judiciary who have been appointment have acted independently. The one good point is that no matter what is said about anyone having political involvement or not, the Judiciary in its decisions is independent. On occasions, members of the Judiciary cause angst by some of the decisions they make.

There should not be any suggestion that we need to change matters to ensure the Judiciary is independent. It is independent. It is a separate arm of the State and it independently makes its decisions.

However, I think we can do better than the current structure. The current structure, which, as Deputy Mac Lochlainn correctly states, dates back to 1995, has been in place for some considerable time. It was an improvement on what preceded it but I think we can do better. I can assure the Deputy, in the context of the review we are conducting, I will have regard to his Bill.

I have a final point on the judicial council Bill. This is a Bill that has been delayed for some time. The previous Government promised to bring it forward. For the information of the House on where matters stand, there was a sub-committee on the part of the Judiciary on that matter and its observations were confirmed to me by the Chief Justice on 8 May 2012. We gave substantial consideration to those observations within my Department following which I conveyed relevant drafting instructions to the Attorney General in November 2012. There was already a prepared Bill which needed improvement and the drafting instructions are to facilitate the completion of that work. Unfortunately, there is some delay in that work because priority must be given to the Legal Services Regulation Bill 2011 where there is substantial work underway on Committee Stage amendments. I hope we will be able to take, or at least start, Committee Stage before Easter. It is the same personnel in the Attorney General's office who would be dealing with these matters and the judicial council Bill is in a queue in that context. However, we will get there.

On the other matter, I can assure the Deputy I have a specific interest in seeing can we improve upon the 1995 legislation. In whatever way we go, it is all about ensuring there is an independent Judiciary and persons of appropriate calibre are selected to be judges.