Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

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, ten or 15 High Court judges who are willing to be appointed as ordinary members of the Supreme Court or to be a Supreme Court judge, is just as important a decision, in many respects, as deciding which of the three most senior members of the Court of Appeal should become President of that court, and it is one on which the Government itself should make the decision. It is one on which, frankly, the views of a judicial appointments commission are not of any real value. That is why the present Judicial Appointments Advisory Board makes it very clear that where the Government proposes to appoint a judge of, say, the Court of Appeal, to be a Supreme Court judge, it can do it without any involvement of any people from outside of Government.

The Minister disturbed me greatly by talking about Secretaries General acting up as if this is a Secretary General acting up kind of decision. The constitutional role of members of the Supreme Court, not merely under Article 26 but generally, is to determine what the Constitution means for the people. It is a central function. Every single member of the Supreme Court is performing a central function in our democracy. The decision as to who should do it and who should not do it is just as important as whether Senator Norris or myself will make a better administrator if either of us were a judge. The decision as to where one wants a liberal or a conservative is just as crucial to how our Constitution actually functions and what it actually means in the end as whether the President of the High Court is better or worse than some other member of the Judiciary at running the Office of the Wards of Court.They are all important functions, but there is this notion that somehow - I think it is held by officials in the Department of Justice and Equality, a Department for which I have great respect - it does not matter who is appointed to the Supreme Court or the one thing that does not matter in terms of who is appointed to the Supreme Court is the Government's view because they are a crowd of eejits in Government Buildings.