Results 16,621-16,640 of 18,737 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: No, it is not simply a question of what harm it will do; I am asking the Minister to specify, before he says he is against it, why he is against it. That is the issue.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: In light of the Minister's proposal, I will not press the amendment.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: I move amendment No. 96b:In page 32, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following:“49.(1) The Government shall not be obliged to publish the names of persons who have not been appointed to judicial office following their recommendation by the Commission. (2) Nothing in this section shall prevent the Commission from informing persons who have applied to it to be recommended for...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: It is important to bear in mind that although the Minister has indicated support for the amendments being tabled by Senators Craughwell, Boyhan and myself in respect of deleting subsections (2) and (3), that still leaves us with subsection (1). The Minister will be aware that in the list of amendments I and my colleagues have also indicated opposition to the section even if that amendment...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: -----and in Trinity College.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: -----and if it were the case, which happily it is not, that he was also educated in King's Inns but, nonetheless-----

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: -----that would have been in the public domain in any event. The idea that the Minister should start justifying appointments by reference to their qualifications is, in my respectful submission, unnecessary. If it were necessary for such information to be officially published by the Government then why not provide that it would be in the notice of appointment in Iris Oifigiúilthat...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: What kind of discussions could take place about the experience, or the inadequacy of the experience, of a particular judge? I do not see what useful purpose is served by this provision at all.I agree completely with Senator Norris that subsections (2) and (3), which arrived in the Bill against the wishes of the Government in the Dáil, are obnoxious and should be removed. They are...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: In addition to supporting the amendments that will be dealt with later in the context of subsections (2)and (3), I ask the Minister to consider indicating now that he will abandon the entire section. He does not have to make a report. People who are interested in the matter - for example, the legal correspondents of the newspapers - will be able to consult Iris Oifigiúiland discover...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: Perhaps he or she is. Who knows? What does merit mean? The point made by the individual to whom I refer, who is an eminent person, is that judges are law-makers to some extent. I do not want to breach parliamentary protocol by talking about current cases, but there is currently a test laid down in respect of smear test cases that will be the law unless it is reversed on appeal. I say...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: In appointing someone to the Bench, one is appointing someone to make the law in an interpretive sense. Judges have principles they apply.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: Inevitably, they will find themselves in a position where they have to decide whether the duty of care in medicine comes down on this or that side of an issue, such as in the case of smear tests. That is the kind of matter which arises. Surely, "merit" is a very dubious term in that context. If someone is more liable to make a decision on this or that side of a line, saying that he or she...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: -----has shown himself to be very liberal on civil liability or damages and that it should think long and hard about appointing him to a vacancy on the Court of Appeal and whether that predisposition should be represented in that court. It might wish to appoint someone of a more conservative outlook, which would be a perfectly legitimate consideration to which to address its mind, however it...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: I agree completely.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: This is why I queried the notion of merit. The criteria for appointing somebody are manyfold. Governments have in the past, to my certain knowledge, been confronted by people who are clever, hard-working and well steeped in the law and by people who are less clever, less hard-working and less learned in the law and yet the first person who has all these attributes might appear to be...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: Unless we have a legislative intervention of that kind, in a considerable number of cases, the law means what the Judiciary says it means. That applies not simply in Ireland but across the common law world. The power of the common law Judiciary is to interpret the law subject only to the right of the appellate courts to put them wrong, or for the Legislature to legislate where it is...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: Was the subject of the Senator's lectures "humility"?

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: As the Minister pointed out, we are only considering the amendment at this stage.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: That is the point. I just want to indicate that, in regard to the proposed new section, the Government should not be obliged to publish the names or make public the names of persons who have not been appointed to judicial office following their recommendation by the commission.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: The Minister now seems to be saying he is in favour of the principle that there should not be an obligation to make the names public. That is the very least that should be done in that respect. The real question is whether the decision ought to be kept secret. Apart from notifying unsuccessful candidates that they have not been shortlisted or have been unsuccessful - they can draw the...