Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I wish to preface my remarks by stating that, in general, the State has been well served by the Judiciary since its foundation. I am aware there are issues such as, for example, whether we would be better served by having the continental inquisitorial system rather than blindly following the very costly adversarial system we have, which is a throwback to our colonial occupation. There is also an issue around appointing multimillionaire barristers to the Judiciary. There should be a debate on a system whereby people, on foot of education and appropriate qualifications, would see the Judiciary as a career in itself and enter it through those educational qualifications.

My purpose this morning is to inquire about the position with the judicial council. It is over ten years since a group of members of the Oireachtas justice committee visited the United States to look at the Judicial Council of Massachusetts. We returned quite enthused about it. We met with the supreme court justice there who told us how the state's judiciary was accountable to its peers through the judicial council system. Subsequently, I inquired about it on a number of occasions, as it was a decision of the Government to pursue that course. However, it was opposed by some elements within the Judiciary. Is it still being stalled or opposed by vested interests? I heard the comments of the Supreme Court Chief Justice in this regard and she appears to be quite supportive of the idea. In particular, I am anxious to know what precautions have been put in place in the absence of a judicial council.

The economic downturn affected people rather badly because of the large amount of liquidity they had financially. Many were heavily borrowed and lost a great deal through investments. There were questions as to whether some would be bankrupt or become insolvent, although I have not seen much evidence of that. There is no reason to believe that the Judiciary would have been immune from the effects of the downturn. The Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct are clear. Under principle 2.5, a judge shall disqualify himself or herself if it may appear to a reasonable observer that the judge is unable to decide the matter impartially. This would include, for example, where the judge or a member of the judge's family has an economic interest in the outcome of the matter in controversy. There have been suggestions, which might be untrue, that some judges, like people throughout society, were heavily borrowed and if they were adjudicating on bank creditors appearing before them there would appear to be an element, perhaps, of conflict of interest.

I am sure the judge would disqualify themselves from hearing such cases but in the absence of a judicial council we cannot rely on that. Given the severity with which the downturn has affected people, it is important that the Government would have taken some initiatives but, given how slow the Government was to deal with the bankruptcy and insolvency issue, I am not confident that it has done that. Principle 4.7 of the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct is very interesting. It states that a judge shall inform himself or herself about the judge's personal and fiduciary financial interests and shall make reasonable efforts to be informed about the financial interests of members of the judge's family.

In conclusion, in a republic everybody is equal before the law. There should be no unaccountable elites anywhere in our society. I am seeking an accountability system in this area. We saw what happened with Justice Hugh O'Flaherty who resigned, very honourably, in circumstances where most people said that what he did was perhaps wrong but was not a resigning matter. Another judge, Judge Brian Curtin, did not resign and got a considerable amount of money from the State in circumstances where it appeared that there should have been no hesitation in a resignation. The independence of the Judiciary is fundamental, but that independence is not just independence from the Executive but also from other influence. Will the Minister outline to the House the precautions this Government has taken to ensure that nothing untoward might have happened during the course of this difficult economic climate, in which many people found themselves in straitened financial circumstances before the courts?