Fianna Fáil suggest Chief Justice could chair judicial-appointments body
Fianna Fáil have said that a compromise in the ongoing row over the proposed new system to appoint judges would be to have the chief justice chair the new body,
Justice spokesman Jim O'Callaghan again reiterated Fianna Fáil's concerns about the proposed new judicial appointments commission, the legislation for which will be debated in the Dáil over three days this week.
The country's top judges made an unprecedented intervention this week by writing to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar with concerns that the reforms would have “serious implications for the administration of justice” in Ireland.
But Shane Ross, the transport minister championing the reforms, has called the old system "rotten" and says that reform is needed so the power to promote people to the bench is taken away from the judge-controlled body currently making recommendations.
Mr O'Callaghan said this morning that a compromise would be if the chief justice was to still chair the new commission as opposed the plan where a lay member would oversee the new body.
He also said that the country's top judges from the high court and elsewhere needed to sit on the new 13-member commission.
