Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Senator Conway should be aware that we are discussing an amendment which would prevent the commission from inquiring into the political, ideological, philosophical or religious views, or the sexual orientation, of candidates. Of course the charge of political cronyism is relevant in that context. Those issues could well inform a Government in its choice of an appointee. Cabinet members might well say, in total good faith - indeed, they ought to say it, if it is their view - that a candidate's ideological views are so extreme on some proposition that he or should not be appointed to the Supreme Court, in particular, or to the other levels of the Judiciary. On the other hand, they might say that a good, card-carrying former member of the Communist Party would make a very good District Court or Circuit Court judge because his or her ideological views are likely to have little or no impact on his or her work as a judge.

The point I wish to emphasise is that I cannot imagine that it could ever be proper to ask a candidate, whether a sitting member of the Judiciary or a person aspiring to be appointed for the first time to judicial office, about his or her political views. I cannot imagine any circumstance in which it would be appropriate. That is so self-evidently the case that it can hardly be gainsaid. Therefore, it should be clearly understood that no such inquiry can or should be made by the commission in its interview process and that this criterion should be completely outside its evaluation of applicants for recommendation.

The same applies to candidates' religious views. There was a time when the Government of this State deliberately appointed members of the so-called minority religion, that is, the Protestant religion, to judicial office as a matter of policy. The idea was that there should always be a mix of Catholics, Protestants and, later, Jews in the High Court and Supreme Court. That was a policy to which Governments adhered because it was necessary to indicate, at a time when sectarianism in Ireland was casual and rife, that justice was administered in courts where there was no sense that any religious minority was excluded. As I wrote in a recent article, I remember as a child and teenager seeing advertisements for a grocer's assistant with the letters "RC" or "CoI" alongside the word "required" in brackets. That was a regular thing in the jobs vacant columns.