Court of Appeal Bill passed by Cabinet

The Bill allowing for the establishment of a Court of Appeal was passed at Cabinet yesterday, paving the way for a major shake-up of the courts system.

The new 10-judge court will sit between the Supreme Court and the High Court and is expected to ease the four-year backlog of cases at the Supreme Court, which for the first time will have the power to select which appeals it hears. A referendum on the creation of the new court was passed with 65 per cent support last October.

The Bill approved by Cabinet sets out the number of judges who will sit on the appeals court and their pay and pension arrangements, the Department of Justice said. It outlines the court’s jurisdiction, which is essentially the appellate jurisdiction previously exercised by the Supreme Court, the Court of Criminal Appeal and the Courts-Martial Appeals Court.

A spokeswoman for the department said its objective was to enact the law before the summer recess so that the new court could be up and running in October. A building has been identified on the Four Courts Complex but so far only one judge – president designate Mr Justice Seán Ryan – has been appointed to the new institution.

Upheaval

The creation of the new court will cause huge upheaval in the superior courts. The majority of its nine ordinary judges are expected to come from the High Court, a situation described by that court’s president, Mr Justice

Nicholas Kearns

, as “an unprecedented situation in Irish judicial life”.

Speaking in April, Mr Justice Kearns said “alarm bells” were ringing over the need to appoint 10 new judges “in one fell swoop” over the coming months. If all 10 were drawn from the High Court, he said, 75 per cent of the 36 judges on the High Court would have less than three years’ experience by the end of the year.

The Government could appoint senior barristers or solicitors to fill vacancies on the High Court, and a number of Circuit Court judges could be in line for promotion.

Decisions of the new court will be final unless the Supreme Court certifies that the case involves a matter of general public importance or it is necessary in the interests of justice that there should be an appeal to the Supreme Court.