Judge waited four months for Minister’s reply to poor communication complaint

Tensions between the Government and the judiciary flared up last April, when a speech by Mr Justice Peter Kelly of the High Court set off recriminations between Merrion Street and the Four Courts.

At a gathering of business leaders, Mr Justice Kelly reportedly accused the Government of attacking the independence of the judiciary and criticised its handling of judges' pay and the creation of new courts presided over by new types of judges.

The row only abated when the two sides announced the creation of a working group to improve communications.

Correspondence released under the Freedom of Information Act shows that at the time Mr Justice Kelly made his speech, his private attempts to make progress with Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin were bearing little fruit.

Writing in his capacity as president of the Association of Judges of Ireland, Mr Justice Kelly wrote to Mr Howlin on March 19th. In his letter, he said the judiciary had recently learnt, through media reports, that it had been decided to make a further cut of up to 10 per cent in the pay of judges. He wasn’t taking issue with the merits of the proposed reduction, he said, but rather with the way the Government was going about it.

He wrote that it was “remarkable” that almost alone within the wider public service, the cuts to be imposed on the pay of the judiciary, “which are the most severe of the measures apparently agreed in the public sector generally, have not been the subject of any consultation, negotiation or even discussion with the judiciary and were not even communicated directly to it.”

Nor was there any attempt to obtain independent expert analysis, or make any assessment, of the impact on “judicial morale, effectiveness or the capacity to recruit appropriate candidates from the private sector”.

The judge concluded that there was now a “self-evident necessity to put in place an appropriate mechanism for consultation and credible trustworthy review of measures affecting the judiciary.”

Ironically, given that poor communications was the subject matter, Mr Justice Kelly did not receive a response from Mr Howlin for four months. Writing on July 24th (“I regret the delay in replying”), Mr Howlin set out the reasons for the pay cuts and the difficult decisions the Government faced.

Consultation that might be appropriate “in more normal times cannot apply”, he wrote, but when the fiscal situation improved there was no doubt “alternative means will be adopted by the Government of the day” to set pay and conditions.

“I know that the points you raise are being discussed in the context of the Committee on Renewal [established the previous April],” Mr Howlin wrote.

“This will permit the respective positions of the judiciary and executive to be established on this difficult issue.”