Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

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 functions in law. Since we amended the Constitution, the holders of the three positions I have mentioned - instead of two previously - sit on the Council of State. The Chief Justice serves on the Presidential Commission when it is required to function because the President is abroad or whatever. Likewise, the President of the High Court has huge functions with regard to disqualification of solicitors, wards of court, administration of the High Court and all the rest of it. The President of the Court of Appeal has weighty responsibilities in organising the business of that court. I agree with the Minister, if this is the point he is making, that those positions require administrative skills which are not just simply judicial skills. One could be a brilliant judge and a very poor President of the High Court if one is not into the business of organising one's fellow members of the High Court, which involves allocating duties to them, getting them to do this, that and the other, and organising and administering the wards of court office. The President of the High Court gets to do all kinds of other things, such as supervising the activities of the professional regulatory bodies, including the Law Society's activities in relation to the discipline of solicitors and the like.I accept that those three positions are different from other positions. I do accept that proposition. I am not denying that there is that difference but I do ask the Minister why it is that he will not trust the judicial appointments commission to have the same function in relation to them as he does for an ordinary judge of the Supreme Court. What is it about this group of people that he suddenly says they are not getting their hands on making a recommendation for the President of the High Court, that it is too important or sensitive for such people, that the Government and senior judges will decide and there will not be lay involvement? What is the rationale for that? Just to say that again, the Minister says that these are very important positions, that he wants to have a special procedure for appointing them, that he wants to have a committee of senior judges who will give advice to the Government on these matters, and that he does not want the judicial appointments commission to have a function in relation to them.

Why? Why does this body, which is so brilliant at everything else, suddenly become so useless when it comes to those three positions? The answer is because they do not know. I presume that the answer is that he does not trust them to come up with the recommendations for the President of the High Court or whatever. The Minister would prefer if the Government made that decision by itself, in consultation with senior judges, if it likes to do, but he does not want all of this gobbledygook about reflecting the diversity of society to come into it at all. He is saying that he wants a particular type of person to be President of the High Court and that is a skilled administrator who is capable of doing all those functions.

This is a double-edged sword. The Minister says that these are very important positions of a senior kind.