Seanad debates

Tuesday, 11 June 2019

Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed)

 

2:30 pm

Photo of Michael McDowellMichael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

What kind of questions would it be proper for an interview committee to put to a serving judge? That is the reason I have at all times opposed the idea of requiring serving judges to go through the evaluation procedures this Bill proposes. I would like to hear, if somebody could tell me in the course of the next 40 minutes, what kind of questions could be put by way of interview to serving judges that would assist the commission in determining whether to rank them among themselves or alternatively to prefer them or not to a non-judicial applicant. I do not believe there are any questions or topics that are in the remotest way relevant. It would be bad enough if one asked them as part of the application process to do a little essay about why they should be appointed, but what sense would there be if one starts to interview them on their attitudes to social issues or ideological views or trying to probe them to see if they came from a fee-paying school or a non-fee paying school with a view to getting diversity on the Bench? What sense is there to any of that? In any event it would be information that would be available from their curriculum vitae, which I presume would have already had to accompany their application.

I appeal in particular to Senators Conway and Noone to tell me what questions they believe could be lawfully, correctly and appropriately put to a woman member of the High Court as to why she should be made a member of the Court of Appeal. Let us remember that under the daft procedures of this Bill so far, there has to be a majority of lay people on the interview committees. What question could they possibly ask an applicant?

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