David Norris (Independent)

Section 9 confers a fairly general power in terms of function which is to receive and investigate complaints. That is terribly wide. The bodies named are the Bar Council and the Law Society and it is implicit in this that complaints may not be entertained if they are against the Judiciary. Can the Minister of State tell me whether this is the case? Can the legal ombudsman entertain a complaint against a member of the Judiciary? If this is not the case, why not? As a Member of the Oireachtas I have received complaints from time to time. Some of these appear to be rather excitable and not entirely well founded. There may be an element of conspiracy theory and judges are blamed because litigants did not get the judgment they wanted. However, there are occasions on which they appear to be well founded. There was a case recently which interested me, in which a mistake was clearly made by a judge which may have resulted in imprisonment. The person whose rights were transgressed in this case found they had no recourse in law for compensation. This seems to be a matter that could be addressed to the legal ombudsman. Is the Judiciary excluded from the operation of the ombudsman?