Legislation on judicial council a 'priority'

THE DEPARTMENT of Justice has said the long-delayed Bill to establish a judicial council is being drafted with a view to publication late this year.

However, it is not included among the 105 Bills on the Government’s first legislation programme published in April.

Even if published, the passage of the Bill through the Oireachtas is unlikely to happen until 2012 at the earliest, nearly 12 years after the establishment of a council was first adopted as government policy.

A spokeswoman for Minister for Justice Alan Shatter said the legislation “is one of the Minister’s many priorities”.

The new Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Susan Denham, referred to the need for such a council in a statement on her appointment by President Mary McAleese on July 25th. Mrs Justice Denham said the time had come to develop a judicial council in Ireland, to support the judiciary and provide assurance to the public that all judges maintained traditionally high judicial standards.

More than a decade has passed since a committee chaired by then chief justice Mr Justice Ronan Keane recommended in 2000 that a council be set up to address the absence of a code of conduct for judges or a mechanism to allow complaints against them to be investigated. The only sanction available until now has been the provision in the Constitution that gives the Oireachtas the powers to impeach a judge. There are no mechanisms for dealing with judicial infractions of a less serious nature.

The department would not say whether the Bill being worked on was based on a draft "general scheme of the Judicial Council Bill" published by the Fianna Fáil and Green Party coalition in July 2010. It appears little has been done to advance that draft legislation since publication last summer. Then minister for justice Dermot Ahern referred the scheme for observation and comment to the Irish Human Rights Commission. The commission has told The Irish Timesthat, 12 months later, it has made no observation on the legislation. A spokeswoman cited a lack of resources.

In reply to a question submitted by this newspaper, the department initially said the commission had commented on the draft legislation but later accepted no observation had been made. Mr Justice Keane’s 2000 report recommended the council represent the entire judiciary, with subcommittees to deal with judicial conduct, training and the pay and conditions of judges. Sanctions were also set out for judges who breached the code of conduct.

These included private or public reprimands and providing for the Oireachtas to take steps to remove a judge for serious offences.The recommendation was made a year after the 1999 Sheedy affair, where an architect imprisoned for dangerous driving was granted early release. The controversy led to two senior judges resigning.

The first draft legislation for a judicial council, based on the findings of the 2000 report, was sent to the judiciary for observations in 2004. Later that year, Circuit Court judge Brian Curtin was acquitted of possessing child pornography after it emerged a warrant was defective.

In response to the ensuing controversy, the Oireachtas took steps to initiate the first impeachment proceedings to remove a judge since the Constitution. Work on advancing the legislation for the judicial council was put on hold pending the outcome.

When Mr Curtin retired voluntarily as a judge, making the impeachment process no longer necessary, then minister for justice Michael McDowell again requested observations from the judiciary on the legislation. That led to a stand-off between government and judiciary that lasted two years and four months, amid deteriorating relations on other issues such as sentencing and bail.