Nominations will be sought today for a new Education Appeals Board of the King's Inns, the barristers' college. The board was set up after clashes between the college's education committee and its general council.
Members of the education committee resigned recently after disagreements with the general council of the college, which overruled several of their decisions.
The issue was brought to a head when the committee, chaired by Mr Justice Peter Kelly, refused to allow some students, including the son of the High Court judge, Mr Justice Declan Budd, to re-sit examinations.
The general council, however, overruled these decisions after an appeal by the students and allowed them to re-sit, for the third time, their final examinations for a diploma in law.
Even without the resignations, the education committee members had been due to leave office this month, when new members will be elected.
Yesterday Mr Frank Clarke SC, chairman of the council of the King's Inns, said 10 or 12 committee members had considered that their job was made impossible if decisions were to be continually overruled.
"The general council would have a slightly more liberal attitude to allowing people to retake exams. I don't honestly think it had anything to do with one of the students being a judge's son," he said.
The issue was about the general council, which had over 40 members and had become unwieldy in overruling decisions. One solution to the problem was his proposal for an Education Appeals Board, which would be completely separate.
"The new regime is now in place and I am about to write to the various nominating bodies for their nominations," Mr Clarke said.
There will be five members of the Education Appeals Board: a Supreme Court judge nominated by the Chief Justice, a High Court judge appointed by the President of the High Court, a nominee of the Bar Council, a representative of the council of King's Inns, and a non-practising barrister of the King's Inns council.
Any future appeals by students will go to the new board.