Results 2,481-2,500 of 18,726 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: Senator Norris may think that is logic but-----

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: If Senator Norris was short-listed for that job in Trinity, it would not have implied that there was a long list. The commission will advise the Government of the three people they consider suitable-----

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: It might in logic but this Bill has little to do with logic.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: Under the Bill as currently drafted, if the Government rejects the three names sent forward to it, there is no provision for it to communicate that back to the commission and to ask it to compile a different list, by adding or subtracting somebody or coming up with three different names. There is no provision for that. I ask the Minister to confirm that I am right in saying that there is no...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: It gives the Government some basic information and advice and makes explicit provision for where it is unhappy with the commission's recommendations. That is all it is designed to do. If it is rejected, it is clear what the Government is trying to do with this legislation. It is trying to say to future Governments that they may never exercise their own constitutional prerogative and...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: No. It must put forward three under the provisions of the Bill.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: Sorry. The commission must put forward three unless it thinks no one else is suitable. The point I am making is that we are creating a complete curtain of ignorance behind which the Government is to operate. We are creating a situation whereby if the judicial appointments commission's first and second preference - and it alone will know this - have been overlooked in favour of its third...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: C has already got the job in this scenario. If D is added to the list and is appointed, does the commission get the message that A and B are not going to get the job? Is that the way this is proposed to work? Does the message finally sink home in the office of the judicial appointments commission that A and B really are not favoured by the Government so it should not bother short-listing...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: There is job of work to be done, but it is more than that. It is a constitutional office, and one cannot just apply ordinary employment criteria to it because of this. One cannot ask the Government to regard it as equivalent to the appointment of someone as manager of Aer Lingus or something like that.It is not like that. One cannot say that there should be a level playing pitch or there...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: The lay majority of the commission is not the determining factor in my mind. I would still have this objection if there were 100 judges and no lay people on the commission. I do not believe it is the function of the Judiciary to tell the Government who is best and who is not for any position. The Constitution vests that function in the Executive, the members of Government, and nobody else....

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: A few of them, a tiny minority of the commission. In any event, that is my personal view. Just so the Minister is not under any illusion, I am not in favour of a self-perpetuating judicial elite and I would not be happy if the Minister reduced the number of lay people to three or two and said that was okay. It is the rest of this Bill that I am deeply unhappy with from a constitutional...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: He was more conservative than some of the people who were seen as the front runners, very definitely. I say that with the greatest of respect to him and to his memory, but I know, as I have spoken to some of the people in government at the time, he was selected because of a concern that the Supreme Court was becoming hyperactive. Whether that was a justified concern or not is a totally...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: It cannot.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: It cannot. That is not provided for in the Bill.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: I wish to make a number of brief comments in response to the Minister.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: He used the word "regularise" as if to say that what has happened in the past is somehow irregular and I object to that proposition. There is nothing regularising about this Bill. In my view, it is this Bill which is irregular. The Minister is not regularising the appointment of judges by putting this system in place. The Minister went on to claim that this will be far more transparent....

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: The Minister has twice implied that if the three names sent forward are not accepted by Government somehow the thing goes back over the net into the commission's court. However, there is not one sentence, clause or word in this Bill, as I read it, which provides for that situation. There is not and the reason for that, if the Minister thinks about it, is that it would be remarkable if the...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: -----is that the Government is going to start playing tennis with the commission. It is going to send the ball back over the net and tell it to have another go to see if it can come up with a better shortlist. I do not see that in the Bill.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (5 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: I move amendment No. 86d:In page 28, between lines 25 and 26, to insert the following: “Disclosure of identity of persons eligible for appointment to judicial office 41. Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 27 and 28, nothing in this Act renders it unlawful for the Attorney General to inform members of the Government of the identity of persons who are eligible for appointment...

Seanad: Criminal Law (Extraterritorial Jurisdiction) Bill 2018: Committee and Remaining Stages (30 Jan 2019)

Michael McDowell: I note that the term “relevant offence” includes an offence under section 3 of the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act 1997 - assault occasioning harm. It is a wide category. Effectively, anything that is not a non-technical assault is an assault occasioning harm within the meaning of that Act. One consequence of stating it is a relevant offence, as will appear from the...