Flanagan has ‘open mind’ on details of judicial appointments body

Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan has said he has an “open mind” on the fine detail of the new Judicial Appointments Commission – as long as it has a lay chair and a lay majority.

The new commission would replace the current Judicial Appointments Advisory Board and comprise a new lay-dominated body, headed by a non-legal chair, which would propose names to the Government for appointment to the judiciary.

The new commission would have 13 members and a number of 11-member subcommittees which would assess applications for judicial appointments to different levels of the courts, from the lower courts to the Supreme Court.

However, members of the Oireachtas Committee on Justice on Wednesday expressed concern that the new commission and relevant committees may be “unwieldy” and not achieve the aim of a diverse judiciary.

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Sinn Féin spokesman Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire said “multiple committees of 11 from a commission of 13 is unwieldy”. He also argued that the presidents of the circuit and district courts were “excluded because the Government wants a lay majority”.

‘Plethora of committees’

Independent TD Clare Daly said she was concerned about the “plethora of committees” and she feared “focusing on them gets away from the ‘who’ gets appointed to the ‘how’ someone gets appointed”.

She said she was also concerned that the committees might be filled with meritorious civil servants and “human resources people”.

Ms Daly said at least 50 per cent of the High Court bench had been to private schools, while just 7 per cent of the population as a whole had gone to such schools. The aim should be to introduce diversity into the judiciary, “which shouldn’t be a career promotion for people in the legal profession,” she said. “They shouldn’t be a class apart,” she added.

Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan said he did not think five different “relevant committees”, was a good idea. But he said the presidents of the district and circuit courts should be included in the commission as they were the ones who knew their courts best.

Mr Flanagan said he had an open mind on the exact numbers and make-up of the committees. “Ultimately the aim is to reform the process,” he said, adding that he had not come to the committee with a closed mind. “There may be a different way of achieving the objective.”

He said the presidents of the district and circuit courts were “extremely valuable in their opinion” and he did not think the numbers in the committees were unwieldy.