Who Am I To Judge? - The Appointment Of Academics To The Irish Judiciary

• Author: Conor Reidy
• Position: B.C.L., LL.B., LL.M., Barrister-at-Law
• Pages: 74-87

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[2019] Irish Judicial Studies Journal Vol 3

WHO AM I TO JUDGE? - THE APPOINTMENT OF

ACADEMICS TO THE IRISH JUDICIARY

Abstract

Legal academics will for the first time be applicable for appointment as judges in Ireland per the Judicial

Appointments Commission Bill 2017. This article discusses the provision and compares it to the law in England

and Wales under the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. While the proposal is to be welcomed in

principle it needlessly limits the potential pool of academic candidates by imposing onerous requirements regarding

their academic contract and adopts narrow criteria for relevant academic experience. The law in England and

Wales allows for a broader and more diverse range of academics to be appointed as judges.

Author: Conor Reidy, B.C.L., LL.B., LL.M., Barrister-at-Law. The author is an Assistant Lecturer in Law

at Dundalk Institute of Technology.

Introduction

This article seeks to examine the proposal as outlined in section 35(4) of the Judicial

Appointments Commission Bill 2017, presented to the Dáil on the 30th May 2017 by the Minister

for Justice and passed by the lower house on the 31st May 2018. At the time of writing, March

2019, the Bill is currently before the Seanad. Should the relevant section of the Bill be passed it

will expand the range of potential candidates for judicial office by allowing legal academics to

apply for the role across various courts for the first time. This article is broken into three

segments, firstly providing a general discussion of the appointment of academics as judges with a

summary given of contemporary commentary, both academic and political. Secondly,

undertaking an analysis of the relevant section in the 2017 Bill and thirdly, providing a

comparison with the equivalent provision in England and Wales, a jurisdiction from which we

continue to model many aspects of our legal system, through analysing section 50 of the

Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007.

Academics as Judges

To the layperson the prospect of a legal academic being appointed a judge may be viewed as a

rather unremarkable occurrence. Giving speeches, reading large volumes of material and writing

to a high standard are skills many are likely to consider the essential basics of both roles. This

may betray a tendency to oversimplify descriptions of the jobs of others in comparison to our

own.

The Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017 has proven controversial since first proposed

but that is centred on the new method by which members of the judiciary shall be chosen,

creating the Judicial Appointments Commission to replace the Judicial Appointments Advisory

Board.

That however is outside the scope of this article; the focus here shall be on a section of the Bill

that has attracted only passing comment amongst politicians and the wider media. It is a

proposal that merits closer scrutiny, ultimately judges are at the very heart of our legal order, and

their decisions can have a long lasting impact on the functioning of our State and the personal

lives of its citizens. As noted by Michael Collins SC: