Only one of more than 230 complaints made last year to the Judicial Council alleging misconduct by judges was found to be admissible for consideration, its annual report for 2023 has disclosed.
The 12-member council’s judicial conduct committee, comprising judges and lay members, will consider whether the complaint can be referred for resolution by informal means or for investigation by a panel of two judges and a lay member.
The Judicial Council Act prevents identification, at this stage of the process, of a judge who is the subject of a complaint.
The complaints and conduct regime began in October 2022. Last year was its first full year of operation. Complaints must apply to conduct from October 2022.
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Of 232 complaint forms received last year, 16 did not come within the scope of the Act and could not be considered by the council’s registrar, Kevin O’Neill.
Because another six received in late 2022 were outstanding, 222 complaints were under consideration in 2023 of which 196 were deemed inadmissible, one was deemed admissible, two were withdrawn and 23, received late in the year, had yet to be considered. More than 60 reviews of the registrar’s inadmissibility findings were sought and carried out but none resulted in overturning his decisions.
Chief Justice Donal O’Donnell, who chairs the council comprising 196 judges, said the fact most complaints were by personal litigants dissatisfied with the outcome of their cases showed a “significant misunderstanding” of the scope and purpose of the conduct regime.
Those were not admissible complaints of judicial misconduct, he said, in his foreword to the annual report. “The court system already provides for an appeal against decisions contended to be wrong. The conduct system deals with a different issue.”
The independent findings of inadmissibility of many other complaints showed, when compared with the significant numbers of cases judges dealt with daily, that the “high standards of conduct” which the judiciary had set for itself, and which the public was entitled to expect, were being adhered to, he said.
Mr O’Neill said the perception that a judge had not assisted a party but favoured the opposing parties, or did not listen to everything a complainant wished to say, were regularly raised as issues. This was usually borne out of a “lack of understanding of the court process and particularly of the judge’s role, in what is an adversarial process”.
During 2023 some statutory amendments previously sought by the council were enacted which provided greater oversight of judicial conduct by overcoming some barriers to considering complaints, he added.
The Supreme Court’s Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley, chairwoman of the council’s sentencing guidelines and information committee, reported the absence of suitable and adequate sentencing data continued to inhibit the committee’s preparation of sentencing guidelines for a range of offences and “systemic reform” of data collection was required.
Two priorities for 2023 related to sentencing in manslaughter cases and in domestic violence prosecutions in the District Court but neither could proceed “by reason of the absence of any meaningful qualitative data”, she said.
The requirement for such information will be met on a targeted basis by judges recording information themselves in the future or by obtaining access to the courts’ digital audio recordings of sentences.
Research was carried out to assist in drafting guidelines on relationship violence and the committee identified sentencing in relation to dangerous driving causing death offences as a priority guideline for the Circuit Court, she outlined.
A required review of the 2022 judicially approved guidelines slashing awards for mainly minor personal injuries was completed in March 2024. Details of the review, carried out by the council’s personal injuries guidelines committee, have not so far been disclosed.
The report also includes details of a range of judicial education and training initiatives undertaken over the past year, including on social media awareness, unconscious bias and trauma-informed practice.
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