Judicial Appointments

The Tánaiste and Minister for Justice has today published the Scheme of Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2016 (press release | Scheme (pdf)) to deliver on the commitments in the Programme for a Partnership Government to reform the system for judicial appointments. The Scheme provides for a new Commission for Judicial Appointments, including a lay chair and a lay majority. The lay members of the Commission will be selected by the Public Appointments Service, which will also select the Chairperson. The Commission will make recommendations to the Government for appointment to judicial office, and a sub-committee of the Commission will prepare codes of practice dealing with selection processes.

This is a thoroughly welcome development, which I will analyse in detail on this blog at a later date. For now, in this post, I want to focus on two innovations, relating to guiding principles to apply in the judicial selection process, and to the eligibility of academics. …

Some forthcoming legislation on the administration of justice, cybercrime, education, intellectual property, and privacy

28 September, 201629 September, 2016

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| Blasphemy, Copyright, Cyberlaw, Digital Rights, ECJ, Intellectual property, Judicial Appointments, Legal Education, Privacy, Universities

Government Chief Whip Regina Doherty has announced the Government’s Legislation Programme for the Autumn Session 2016 (pdf). It is a considerable update of the programme published last June (pdf) when the government came into office.

The June programme had the feel of a holding document, published to get a new government to the Summer Recess. This programme has a far more substantial feel about, published to demonstrate the government’s confidence in its capacity to promote and enact legislation.

After the publication of the June programme, I examined proposed legislation from the Department of Education and Skills (here; and see also here), the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (here; and see also here and here), and the Department of Justice and Equality (here and here). Under those headings, very little has changed. But there are some notable additions, not least of which is the Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) (Amendment) Bill. All we are told is that work is underway on a Bill to “amend various pieces of legislation in respect of electronic communications”. There is no further explanation. This is probably the Bill to provide for further covert surveillance of electronic communications promised by the Minister earlier this Summer.…

Some Courts legislation mentioned in the Government’s new legislative programme

16 June, 201628 September, 2016

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| Judicial Appointments

As I have pointed out in two previous post (here & here), the Government’s newly-published Legislation Programme (pdf) sets out the legislation that the Government will seek to publish over the next few months. There are eleven priority Bills for publication this session; there are four Bills expected to undergo pre-legislative scrutiny this session; and there are 17 Bills currently on the Dáil and Seanad Order Papers. This will keep the government and both Houses of the Oireachtas busy in the short term.

Of more long term interest are the 97 other Bills at various stages of preparation mentioned in the Programme. The Department of Justice will be especially busy – by my count, it has a mammoth 41 of the 97 Bills. Three, in particular, relate to the Courts:

Judicial Appointments Bill
To replace the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board with a new Judicial Appointment Commission
Heads expected by end year 2016

Judicial Council Bill
To promote excellence in the exercise by judges of their judicial functions and to provide effective remedies for complaints
about judicial misconduct including lay participation in the investigation of complaints
Heads approved, drafting at an advanced stage

Juries Bill
To reform the law relating to juries
Proposals under consideration

There doesn’t seem to be a Brief for the Minister on the Department’s website, as there was for the incoming Ministers for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (which I discussed here; follow-up here), and Education and Skills (which I discussed here; follow-up here).…

The process of judicial appointments and the eligibility of academics

18 May, 20166 December, 2016

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| Judicial Appointments

As has been widely reported, a new Judicial Appointments Commission for appointing judges forms a key element of the Programme for Government, to reduce political influence in the judicial appointments process. The new Commission will have an independent chair selected by the Public Appointments Service and approved by an Oireachtas committee, though the final decision on judicial appointments will remain with the Government. Reflecting the commitment in the Confidence and Supply Arrangement for a Fine Gael-Led Government entered into between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil that the Government will “establish a Judicial Appointments Commission to identify the most suitable candidates for judicial office”, the Programme for a Partnership Government provides (Chapter 16, section 6, at page 152) (pdf):

We will introduce legislation to replace the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board with a new Judicial Appointments Commission. The new structure will include a reduction in its membership, an independent chairperson selected by the Public Appointments Service and approved by an Oireachtas Committee, and a lay majority including independent people with specialist qualifications.

We will reform the judicial appointments process to ensure it is transparent, fair and credible. We will reduce the number of suitable candidates proposed by the Judicial Appointments Commission for each vacancy to the lowest number advised as constitutionally and legally permissible by the Attorney General, but in any event not more than three candidates to be shortlisted by the Judicial Appointments Commission for any vacancy.

…

Judicial appointments, and academics – a footnote

24 April, 201618 May, 2016

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| Irish Law, Judicial Appointments

Lord Neuberger, President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom gave an address (pdf) to the International Council of Advocates at the World Bar Conference in Edinburgh recently. Given the occasion, Neuberger was mostly concerned with the role of advocates; but he did also mention the inter-relationship between bench and bar; and he made a very interesting observation about judicial diversity, in particular about the desirability of recruiting judges from academia or government.

Here are some extracts (emphasis added):

3. An honest, expert, respected, and independent judiciary is now generally accepted as being an essential ingredient of the rule of law, which is one of the two main constitutional pillars of an properly ethical and commercially successful society (the other pillar being democratic government). …

6. I believe that the system that it exists in the countries represented here today, Zimbabwe, Wales, South Africa, Scotland, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, Namibia, Ireland, Hong Kong, England or Australia, is one which we have every reason to feel proud of. Not only does each of us have a strong and independent judiciary and a strong and independent legal profession, but we each have a system which ensures that the two groups, judges and lawyers, understand each other.

…

Judicial appointments, and academics – again

31 March, 201618 May, 2016

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| Irish Law, Judicial Appointments

Approximately one month after both Adrian Hardiman of the Irish Supreme Court and Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court suddenly passed away, Thomas Cromwell of the Supreme Court of Canada has given notice to the Canadian Minister of Justice that he will retire from the bench effective 1 September 2016. On theCourt.ca, John Mastrangelo writes that “the newly-elected Canadian government will soon face a challenge of its own in replacing a Canadian Supreme Court titan”. One aspect of Mastrangelo’s assessment caught my eye:

Born in Kingston Ontario, the young Thomas Cromwell earned degrees in Music and in Law from Queens University, an ARCT Diploma from the Royal Conservatory of Music, and a Bachelor of Civil Law from Oxford University. After spending time teaching at both the University of Toronto and Dalhousie University, Justice Cromwell served as Executive Legal Officer to then-Chief Justice Antonio Lamer between 1992 and 1995, before going on to serve in the judiciary himself. In 1997, he was appointed by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien directly to the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal despite not having had any prior experience as a trial judge (although he had previously served as a labour arbitrator and adjudicator in Nova Scotia).

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Why should legal academics not be judges?

15 December, 201518 May, 2016

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| Irish Law, Judicial Appointments

Why should legal academics not be eligible to apply for appointment to be bench, especially at appellate level? The question came up during a debate on the Courts Bill 2015 in the Seanad last Friday. The Bill is a short one, designed to increase the number of judges of the High Court by two. But amendments put down by Senator Seán Barrett at Committee Stage were designed to make legal academics eligible for appointment as judges of all courts on the same bases as practising barristers and solicitors (full disclosure, I drafted the text of the amendments for him). In reply, Minister of State at the Department of Justice and Equality, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD said:

The Government is conducting a wide-ranging review of all matters concerned with judicial appointments that will allow the necessary full assessment of all aspects of the issue. It is committed to bringing forward legislative reforms in this area and a judicial appointments Bill which is being prepared is the subject of a commitment in the agreed programme for Government. The subject of the amendments, that is, the eligibility of legal academics for judicial appointment, is one of a wide range of matters included within the scope of the review I have mentioned.

…

Some reflections on @RuadhanIT’s excellent @IrishTimes series on the Irish Supreme Court

11 July, 201318 May, 2016

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| Irish cases, Irish Law, Irish Society, Irish Supreme Court, Judicial Appointments

In Brown v Allen 344 US 443, 540 (1953), Robert H Jackson, Chief Prosecutor at Nuremburg and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States said of that Court:

We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.

Supreme Courts’ quality of finality, on matters of the gravest import, fascinates observers; and, giving us a chance to go behind that finality closer to home, Ruadhán Mac Cormaic (@RuadhanIT) has an excellent series of articles on the Irish Supreme Court in the Irish Times. Here (with some added links and a few comments) is a flavour of his coverage over the last few days.

Inside Ireland’s Supreme Court: “… Nearly all judges resist labels such as liberal or conservative, pro-State or pro-plaintiff and dismiss attempts to extrapolate from their background a predisposition to decide a case a certain way. …”. Nevertheless, it is a persistent trope amongst watchers of the US Supreme Court (and of the UK courts, though perhaps less so), and it is likely to become so for the Irish Supreme Court as well, if the planned Court of Appeal allows the Supreme Court to become more of a constitutional court in the mo(u)ld of its US counterpart.…

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Category: Judicial Appointments

The Judicial Appointments Commission Bill: guiding principles and the eligibility of academics

Some forthcoming legislation on the administration of justice, cybercrime, education, intellectual property, and privacy

Some Courts legislation mentioned in the Government’s new legislative programme

The process of judicial appointments and the eligibility of academics

Judicial appointments, and academics – a footnote

Judicial appointments, and academics – again

Why should legal academics not be judges?

Some reflections on @RuadhanIT’s excellent @IrishTimes series on the Irish Supreme Court