Sir, – Of all the things that immediately spring to mind upon having read Minister for Transport Shane Ross's article ("Judicial appointments must not be new form of cronyism", Opinion, December 7th), two salient points are most worth making.
When describing deputy Jim O’Callaghan’s Judicial Appointments Bill, the Minister writes: “The Bill was far from perfect. While it largely removed political leverage, it gave someone else – legal eagles – a majority on the new commission selecting judges”. The tabloid turn of phrase “legal eagles” is, of course, just a pejorative way of saying “lawyers”. Or, in this context, Michael Gove’s much-derided “experts”.
I have heard nobody suggest there ought not to be lay input into the selection of judges.
However it must be recognised that, in the same way that one would not want a consultant neurosurgeon appointed by a committee with a majority of firefighters, it is possibly best not to appoint judges by a committee composed of a majority without knowledge of, or any expertise in, the law or legal affairs.
The second point is that the Minister, worryingly, pronounces that “the near-impossibility of removing a bad judge . . . must be resolved in coming legislation”.
As I am sure Mr Ross is aware, the difficult process involved in removing a Superior Court judge is not contained solely in “legislation”, but is enshrined in our Constitution (and not without good reason, as the Turkish judiciary were recently unfortunate enough to discover).
If the ultimate goal is a referendum to bring judges entirely under the thumb of the executive, it would be well that we were told.
If no such referendum is in the offing, then your columnist Noel Whelan did well to describe the Minister’s stance as “mere political posturing”.
– Yours, etc,
CATHAL MALONE BL
Carrigaline,
Co Cork.