Michael McDowell criticises judicial reform plans

Former tánaiste and minister for justice Senator Michael McDowell has claimed the Government’s lay majority on the proposed judicial appointments commission will not produce better judges.

The lay majority is one of the measures included in the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, which is expected to be published next month and would establish the commission.

Speaking in the Seanad on Wednesday, he said the plan was an attack on a system that had worked extremely well.

“I do not want to push it any further than to say that this proposal will not produce better candidates for the judiciary,’’ he said.

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He also said the lay majority, who will have to have been approved by the Public Appointments Service, would politicise promotions within the judiciary.

Mr McDowell, who is a barrister, said the process would discourage many people who would be good judges or good candidates for promotion to a higher court from applying for such positions.

“The Bill is misconceived,’’ he added.

He said the Republic was the only state in the common law world in which a government had ever proposed having a lay majority on a judicial advisory board.

“It is of some significance that such a change has not been proposed in America or anywhere else with a common law system,’’ he said.

He said that, under the proposed new scheme, a High Court judge willing to become a Supreme Court judge or a Court of Appeal judge was supposed to submit to being interviewed for the position by seven lay people.

The judge could also possibly be excluded from first consideration by the Cabinet, he added.

Selection process

Minister of State for Justice David Stanton said the proposal to allow for a lay majority and a lay chair on the commission would provide for a much-needed critical mass of non-judicial and non-legal people in the selection process for judges.

He said it would also ensure that there was a wide set of expertise and experience among the lay people represented on the commission.

"It seems there are no difficulties with the lay chair and lay majority concepts in the jurisdictions of England and Wales and Scotland, where judicial procedures have been fully reformed in recent times,'' Mr Stanton said.

He said the Chief Justice would be a member of the commission and, as the most senior member of the judiciary, would have a critical input into the determinations on the suitability of candidates for judicial office.

“I believe the overall balance proposed by the Government is correct,’’ Mr Stanton added.