Details to date of judges' expenses have been released by the Courts Service on an anonymised basis since the organisation came under the remit of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
However, the names of individual judges have always been withheld until now, unlike, for example, the names of individual Ministers or departmental officials who are also paid from the public purse.
Last May, The Irish Times challenged the decision of the Courts Service to withhold those names under the Freedom of Information Acts.
The paper appealed to the Office of the Information Commissioner against the decision not to release the names of judges of the Supreme Court, High Court, Circuit Court and District Court along with their expenses for 2012.
The Office of the Information Commissioner then wrote to 174 judges about the appeal and received submissions from 29, as well as a letter from the Association of Judges of Ireland, representing over 90 per cent of judges in the State.
Personal security
The Courts Service and the Garda Commissioner objected to the release of the names and the judges’ association raised concerns about judges’ personal security.
It also said it was difficult to see what public interest would be served by disclosing the names.
Acting Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan said the release of any information that “could potentially increase public disquiet” such as on the personal circumstances of judges was “of concern to An Garda Síochána”.
She said “it would be a serious concern” if the information “leads to travel arrangements, itineraries and absences from home of judges becoming known”.
Ms O’Sullivan also said it could “lead to further investigations and scrutiny” and “this attention would cause concern from a security perspective”.
In a groundbreaking decision made last August, Information Commissioner Peter Tyndall found the Courts Service was not justified in withholding the names of individual judges.
He said the same principles applied in regard to transparency of expenses payments from public funds for judges and members of the Oireachtas.
“The public interest in ensuring accountability for the use of public funds outweighs any right of privacy which judges might enjoy in relation to details of their expenses claims,” Mr Tyndall said.
“Not reasonable”
He added that expectations contained in submissions that “the security of the State would be adversely affected” if the names were released were “not reasonable”.
Concerns about judges’ personal safety were “speculative in nature” and “not a type for which real and substantial grounds exist.
“It is not appropriate for a public body to refuse a request for records . . . on the basis of the remote possibility of a particular harm arising,” Mr Tyndall said.
The names of judges were released yesterday, following an eight-week period for potential appeals to the High Court by affected parties. No appeals were made.
