Leo’s judicial Bill deal is tawdry and short-sighted
SHANE Ross and Sinn Féin guaranteeing the Government’s Judicial Appointments Commission Bill’s safe passage through the Dáil is a cringe-inducing irony for the Taoiseach. Before he was appointed a minister, Deputy Leo Varadkar saw Ross as a dilettante and the Shinners as delinquent diehards.
And holding his nose and smiling at the same time convinces nobody that Leo the Lionheart Taoiseach ‘tells it like it is’.
The tawdry trade-off with the Independent Alliance and Sinn Féin sends out a message like a canary in a contaminated constitutional coalmine: ‘cheap, cheap, cheap’.
It is also puerile politics: the sort of jolly jape Ross would have pulled for a students’ union election and the opportunism that Sinn Féin employs to further its classwarfare agenda.
Increasing numbers in the Taoiseach’s own party agree with the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil’s view that the Bill is fundamentally flawed and could trigger an election.
HOW we appoint judges is a very serious undertaking: if my fundamental rights were threatened or I was the victim of injustice, a judge is more likely to right any wrong than a politician. It is in the nature of politicians to opt for a quick fix despite consequences that could harm others but ultimately serve their own interests.
And I never forget the fable about the scorpion and frog:
‘A scorpion asks the frog to carry him across a stream on its back. The frog asks: ‘How do I know you won’t sting me?’ The scorpion says: ‘Because if I do, I will die too.’
They set out but, midstream, the scorpion stings him and, just before he sinks, the frog asks: ‘Why?’ The scorpion replies: ‘It’s in my nature...’ I’ll leave it to others to decide whose nature is closer to the scorpion – yet most politicians prefer to be perceived as an effective predator than a naive victim.
And some judges fail to keep their arrogance in check while oozing self-importance, there are other-worldly eccentrics and a few succumb to naivety.
But in my experience of reporting from the courts and covering politics, judges are better at judging than politicians are at politics.
Yet, judicial reform is long overdue – we had a reminder of how urgently by the unseemly haste to appoint former AG Máire Whelan to the Court of Appeal.
Either Varadkar didn’t notice that his Bill gratuitously demeans the judiciary – or he believes that their humiliation is the price that judges must pay for him to remain Taoiseach.
Did he forget that judges are not like puppies at Christmas but appointed for life, while politicians can be painlessly euthanised at an election never more than five years away?
Choosing a competent judge requires a detailed knowledge of their career practising law to help assess their suitability for the bench, and no one is better placed to do that than other lawyers or a judge.
Balancing the influence of politicians, judges and lawyers with individual laypersons is an imperative when appointing judges.
The credibility and independence of the president of the Supreme Court chairing a body appointing judges will always be preferable to a layman knowing little about the administration of justice.
And if the Government and Ross cannot accept an amendment making the Chief Justice chairman in their Bill, it will say a lot about the politicians: they believe their staying in office is more in the public interest than doing the right thing.
Footnote: Maybe Varadkar will have more sympathy with Sinn Féin’s ‘legacy issues’ while he struggles with the programme for government bequeathed to him by outgoing Taoiseach Enda Kenny.
PAUL McGUINNESS has been a friend of mine from before he managed U2 and I was delighted to read about the record viewing figures for Riviera, the television drama he made with Sky.
And when he wasn’t litigating with neighbours of his two houses on greater Dublin’s most expensive property, Sorrento Terrace in Killiney, writer-director Neil Jordan has been bitching about changes made to his scripts for Riviera. His name is still the most prominent on the credits – so he did not ask to have it removed – and presumably he drew a bumper fee for his efforts.
ANOTHER dark episode in the Riviera drama unfolded this weekend when it was announced that the sumptuous palace on the Cote d’Azur where it was filmed is to be demolished.
In what could have been a dark subplot in the series, a court ordered the demolition because the billionaire owner Patrick Diter, 60, did not have permission to build it.
But the star-studded cast could be left homeless in a less salubrious setting than Grasse, the French perfume capital in the hills above Cannes where BBC presenter Andrew Neil has a holiday home.