Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Victor Boyhan's comments on the importance of having the Minister for Justice and Equality called to the House to discuss the principle of making judicial appointments in the manner proposed by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Shane Ross. It is a flagrant attack on the Constitution which gives the power to select judges to the Government which is elected by the people and Dáil Éireann. I was engaged in the process of selecting members of the Judiciary for eight years and did so, if I may say so, with party political impartiality. Selecting members of the Judiciary is a political function and a duty of the Government. What is more, it is a function that cannot be abdicated from. There is nothing more political, with a small "p", than identifying what woman or man should be part of the Supreme Court. It is not a function of a group of laymen or others but a political and a democratically accountable function which must be performed by the body that the Constitution, to which we all owe a duty of loyalty under Article 9, identifies - the Government. This is a misconceived hijacking of the Government by the Minister.

I strongly support what has been said by Senator Victor Boyhan and intend to raise the matter in the Commencement debate next week.

We are sitting in one House of a democratic assembly, one of many across the western world. We also read in our newspapers and hear in the broadcast media today that the United States of America has decided to reintroduce torture of people it arrests around the world. I have studied what went on in Guantanamo Bay, the humiliation, the stripping naked and shackling of people to the floor and daubing them in what was alleged to be menstrual fluids. People had a towel put around their head which was then slammed against a wall repeatedly to see if they had any information. We all know what happened in Abu Ghraib and about the horror of waterboarding. I believe I speak for every Member of this and the Lower House when I say we should protest, in the strongest possible way, about the fact that a country that claims to be a friend and ally of this state is breaching human rights in this repugnant and disgusting way. I register that protest.