Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

No, but the Leader is suffering from amnesia about what made him change between last Wednesday and Thursday when he went from two hours to seven hours. We then read in the newspapers that we were going to be sitting until after midnight, until this House said it would not be bullied in this way. The Leader will not get away with this kind of tactic. Do I have a problem with an applicant for judicial office being interviewed by a board? No, I have no problem with it whatsoever. The Judicial Appointments Advisory Board has the power to interview people if it considers it necessary. I have a major problem, however, with serving members of the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court being interviewed by a body which will not make the ultimate decision about them, being ranked in order of preference and being put on a little shortlist which is sent to the Government to create the impression that whoever is appointed to the Bench is the creature of the commission, rather than being the person recommended by the Executive to the President.

These amendments are about saving members of the serving Judiciary and other applicants from being asked to divulge their political outlook and their views on likely upcoming issues to be determined in the courts. I believe this is very important. It is important for any applicant but it is doubly important for a serving judge of the High Court who, according to the Bill as it stands, will no longer be able to do what he or she is allowed to do at the moment, that is, to write to the Secretary General of the Government to say he or she is available for appointment to the vacancy in the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court, leave it at that and let the Government make up its mind. Such a judge will be required to apply to a commission which will interview him or her. What form could such an interview take? There is no point in repeating the discussion we have had about the notion contained in the Bill that appointments should be made on merit. Nobody will determine what merit is because issues such as whether one is conservative or liberal are points of merit in the mind of an appointing government. If a person believes that a judge who has been excessively generous with damages is the person to be appointed as the President of the Court of Appeal, that would be naive and that person would not do that. If somebody believes a certain judge, who is on the lenient end of the spectrum in terms of sentencing policy, is the one that person wants to appoint as President of the Court of Appeal or a senior judge on the criminal side of things, who will decide questions of the inadequacy or otherwise of sentences, of course he or she will make decisions like that, but those are decisions for the Executive and not for a quango. These decisions are not ones on which the views of a quango are of any assistance whatsoever and, on my reading of the Bill, the commission is not permitted to carry out its evaluation of candidates in this way.

It has been asked whether it is acceptable for an applicant for judicial office to be questioned, interviewed or required in any way to disclose his or her opinion on how any particular issue of law or matter of legal controversy, including matters of constitutional interpretation or amendment, should be decided, or should have been decided, by the courts. It is a very simple proposition. Are interviews to cover that territory or not? The Minister says he sees some merit in some consideration of these points, which is a movement forward, but he is not willing to accept this amendment in its present form. I do not see why it is not acceptable in its present form and I have not heard any coherent explanation as to what is wrong with it in its present form. It is relevant to the discussion on amendment No. 97db so I will put the amendment to a vote of the House.