Results 2,681-2,700 of 18,726 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: I agree with Senator Norris that using the word "notwithstanding" is not as clear as simply saying the previous section does not apply to this section at all. The procedures of this House mean that if I were to propose an amendment saying that the previous section does not apply, I would be told that the House had just decided that it does apply and I would be seen to be asking the House to...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: There are a few things that I would like to say to the Minister before the Senator asks for a wider audience.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: If I may say so, the Minister is my audience on this occasion. I agree with the Minister that the positions of Chief Justice, President of the Court of Appeal and President of the High Court are different from the ordinary positions in those courts. That is because the Chief Justice, for instance, has significant other functions, such as chairing the Courts Service, and various other...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: Exactly.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: I remember the late John Patrick Wilson, the former Tánaiste, teaching me Latin in Gonzaga College. The phrase was gladium anceps, a double-edged sword which would go in either direction. The Minister has come here and said suddenly that he wants to take these three positions away from the judicial appointments commission.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: So do I, by the way. Why does he want to do that? I know why I want to do so. I want a rationalisation from the Minister as to why he thinks this group of people would not be a good group to make a shortlist of people for consideration by Government. I will tell the Minister why. It is because he does not really trust them to know the insides and outsides of what is involved in the...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: Yes.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: They do not know enough to make a recommendation, or even draw up a shortlist, as to who should be President of the High Court. Why not? They are skilled when it suits the Minister. These are people who are going to be selected from all sorts of life. They are going to be rushed through by the Public Appointments Service. They are going to be approved by Members of the Oireachtas, but...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: They will be wonderful people. They will have all of the qualifications that are required.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: Diversity and all the rest of it, but when it comes to making a decision of this kind, the Minister is saying no, they are not to have a function in this, that it is a governmental function on which the Government will take advice from senior judges but not from a majority lay body. Where is the reasoning and justification for that distinction? I can see it a mile away. It is that the...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: Sorry, they do not know sufficient to advise the Government or to draw up a shortlist with which the Minister would be happy. That underlines the fact that a lay majority group is not as good, in some circumstances, as a non-lay majority group.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: It is not a group whose judgment would be relied upon as much as on the advice of a group of people who knew more about how the courts function. I conceded that those three positions have administrative characteristics, which could justify them being put into a separate category. I make the point, however, that the selection of a High Court judge, or the making of a selection between five,...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: Let us have some people who really know about it; let us have a lay majority and let us give them a shortlist which they are bound to consider.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: That would be far better, but I reject that idea completely. I am not very keen either on installing the Judiciary in a position where it would have a pulpit view in the selection of the Chief Justice. A new Government might take a different view from that of the Judiciary of who should or should not be the next Chief Justice. Asking the Presidents of the various courts to furnish a report...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: I have seen them and they function in exactly the same way as ordinary members of that court. One takes them as if they were ordinary members of the court because they have been invited to act as ordinary members of the court. It is not like saying they are civil servants who are acting up; rather, they are different. Under the Constitution, a judge has significant power and is being asked...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: That is all a judge has to do. Under what is being put in place, as the Minister told us on the last occasion - I will not go back over the terms in which he told us - that will not be permitted in the future. The only way in which a person who has served for ten or 15 years in the High Court will be able to signal to the Government his or her willingness to serve as a member of the Court...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: I am content to simply say this. It is something, by the way, I am glad that there are more Senators here to listen to. We are being told that, to fill the position of President of the Court of Appeal, President of the High Court and-----

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: I made the point - simply, for those who were not here - that, as far as I am concerned, it is strange indeed that the Minister is contemplating having a separate system of appointing the three senior presidencies in the superior courts, excluding-----

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: -----the commission.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: I do agree.