judges – Page 2 – cearta.ie

Why Vote No Earlier this evening, I did an interview on The Last Word with Matt Cooper on Today fm concerning next Thursday’s referendum to amend the Constitution to add a mechanism to allow judges’ salaries to be reduced. The arguments in favour of the principle are very strong: as a matter of fairness and balance, when other public servants are suffering pay reductions, there is no good reason why judges should not do so too. But that is not the only principle at stake here: the independence of the judiciary is an important aspect of the rule of law. Any implementation of the principle of reduction in judicial salaries in line with other public servants ought to be done without doing violence to the principle of the independence of the judiciary. As I said on The Last Word with Matt Cooper this evening, I do not believe that the proposed amendment manages to maintain this balance.

The amendment proposes that “provision may … made by law to make proportionate reductions to the remuneration of judges” in certain circumstances. Leaving aside those circumstances, this simply allows the reduction of judicial salaries to be effected by legislation, which in the ordinary way is proposed by Government.…

Judge dread

14 July, 201118 May, 2016

| 6 Comments

| Irish Society, judges, Judicial Appointments, Open Justice, The Rule of Law

Growing up, I loved the comic 2000AD, and one of its leading characters was Judge Dredd (pictured left). We never saw underneath his helmet’s visor because – with his catchphrase “I am the law” (echoed by Lord Thurlow LC in The Madness of King George) – he represents the impartiality and facelessness of justice. This is why more traditional representations of lady justice show her wearing a blindfold – as in the statute overlooking upper castle yard in Dublin Castle: the blindfold represents objectivity and impartiality. Hence, under Article 34.5.1 of the Constitution, judges make a declaration that they will execute their functions “without fear or favour, affection or ill-will towards any man”. This judicial impartiality, abjuring both preference and malice, is the cornerstone of the rule of law – it requires and allows both that questions of legal right and liability to be resolved by application of the law and not by the exercise of discretion, and that the laws of the land should apply equally to all: be you never so high, the law is above you. But, as the text of judicial oath expresses, to be able to decide without favour, judges must be free to decide without fear – that is, without the dread in the title to this post.…

Retention of DNA, and the effect of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights

31 January, 20111 February, 2011

| 4 Comments

| ECHR, Irish Law, judges, Privacy

An article in today’s Daily Telegraph raises important issues relating to the retention of the DNA of innocent persons by the police in both the UK and Ireland. It also raises profound questions as to the effect of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in domestic law.

According to the Telegraph:

The [UK’s] Coalition Government has pledged to dramatically reduce the time period that police can retain samples of people who were not charged or convicted of offences. It follows a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in 2008 that a blanket policy of retaining such profiles indefinitely was illegal.

However, no new laws have yet been introduced and the Supreme Court will today hear a test case that such samples should be deleted now. If the country’s top court agrees it could result in police forces having to remove the samples immediately regardless of when new legislation is introduced.

The case is R (on the application of C) (FC) (Appellant) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (Respondent) (UKSC 2010/0186) …

Gallimaufry

12 May, 201010 October, 2016

| 2 Comments

| Censorship, Defamation, Gallimaufry, judges, open access, plagiarism, PowerPoint

Dr Johnson defined gallimaufry as

1. A hoch-poch …
2. Any inconsistent or ridiculous medley. …

Here’s a hoch-poch, or hotch-potch (though, of course, not a hotchpot) of links relevant to the themes of this blog that have caught my eye over the last while:

First, an Article 10 Right of Reply? considers the various routes to a legally enforceable right to reply to inaccurate information in the same medium where the original statements were published. In this post, Andrea Martin argued that such a development is neither necessary nor desirable, but that a voluntary scheme operated by broadcast media would have a lot to recommend it.

Second, the Irish judiciary has signalled support for setting up a judicial council, a development anticipated by the ICCL in 2007 which I welcomed at the time.

Third, Slate recently published No More Bullet Points, No More Clip Art (h/t Oisín, offline) arguing that “PowerPoint isn’t evil if you learn how to use it”. But so many people fail to learn how to use it that I have no doubt that my antipathy will continue.

Fourth, a story in the Independent on Plagiarism and PhDs: how to deal with copying says that it “may seem counter-intuitive but postgraduates are more likely to commit plagiarism than undergraduates”.…

Judicial Activism

3 October, 200929 September, 2009

| No Comments

| Conferences, Lectures, Papers and Workshops, judges, law school

The Hon. Mr. Chief Justice Balakrishnan, Chief Justice of India, will deliver a Guest Lecture at the School of Law, TCD:

Judicial Activism Under the Indian Constitution

It will be held on Wednesday, 14 October 2009, at 6:00 pm in the JM Synge Theatre, Room 2039, Arts Building, Trinity College Dublin (map).

If you would like to attend, please contact the Law School, by email, by mail to School of Law, House 39, Trinity College, Dublin 2; by phone to (01) 896 2367 or by fax to (01) 677 0449.

It promises to be an interesting evening. The label “judicial activism” is often used loosely, sometimes to describe the judicial process, sometimes to castigate judges as failing to confine themselves to reasonable interpretations of laws, and instead substitute their own political opinions for the applicable law. I particularly reocmmend the posts on Balkinization. The issue, a long-time staple of constituitonal jurisprudence, came to the fore again during the confirmation hearings for US Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor. But the debate is not confined to the US: rather, it arises where-ever there are Courts – so judges in Canada, Australia, the European Court of Justice, and Ireland are all routinely praised and criticised accordingly.…

Televising the Supreme Court

1 October, 200910 July, 2013

| 4 Comments

| Court dress, judges, Law, Open Justice, UK Supreme Court

No, not the Irish Supreme Court, but the new UK Supreme Court. There’s quite a lot of coverage in the UK media and blawgopshere today about the new Court at the apex of UK’s judicial system, which opens for business today, on time and on budget, in a refurbished former criminal court, after a difficult gestation. David Pannick argues in the Times today that, however unhappy its origins, the opening of a new Supreme Court is an important commitment to the rule of law. Much of the media interest turns on the fact that the Court will be televised. For example, one of the pieces in the Times is headlined that TV coverage means justice really will be seen to be done:

The reform has taken a number of steps over 20 years: a Bar Council report chaired by Jonathan Caplan, QC, in 1989, the filming of parts of the Shipman inquiry and the Hutton inquiry and the 2004 pilot project in the Court of Appeal all moved the issue of cameras in court forward. … The footage will be filmed and recorded by the court and made available by a feed to broadcasters, … [and] can be used only for news, current affairs and educational and legal training programmes.

…

The benefits of the Press Council

19 September, 200910 December, 2012

| No Comments

| Defamation, judges, Press Council

Using the Press Ombudsman and Press Council mechanisms will allow media complaints to be settled without lawyers, as expensive legal processes will be invoked much less frequently following the enactment of the Defamation Act, 2009 according to the Press Ombudsman, Prof John Horgan. On the one hand, he would say that wouldn’t he? On the other, I hope that he’s right; it’s much too early to tell, of course, but that is the intention behind the establishment and recognition of his office.

However, not only is bringing a complaint to his office cheaper and quicker, it’s probably also safer than going to court. According to the Irish Times breaking news service, a judge was accidentally shot in court; but the facts were rather more prosaic, and the later print version of the article explained that pellets from a toy gun struck the judge at a family law hearing. …

Report of the Working Group on a Court of Appeal

10 August, 200910 July, 2013

| 1 Comment

| Irish Court of Appeal, Irish Court of Appeal, Irish Law, Irish Society, judges, Politics

I’ve written about this report twice already. The first occasion was when a committee chaired by Ms Justice Susan Denham of the Supreme Court was established to consider the necessity for a new Irish Court of Appeal (this was in part a response to an article on the point which Judge Denham had written the previous year in the [2006] 1 Judicial Institute Studies Journal 1 (pdf)). The second occasion when the Government received the committee’s report. In the most recent installment of this slow-moving story, the report was published last week – only three months after it was submitted to government – and to generally favourable reviews in the media (see Belfast Telegraph | Irish Independent here and here | Irish Times | RTÉ). …

cearta.ie

Category: judges

Better angels, undesirable devils, and the judicial pay amendment

Judge dread

Retention of DNA, and the effect of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights

Gallimaufry

Judicial Activism

Televising the Supreme Court

The benefits of the Press Council

Report of the Working Group on a Court of Appeal