Kenny rules out bias over appointments

TAOISEACH Enda Kenny has pledged that he will not use “political bias” in the appointment of personnel to the board which advises the Government on the appointment of judges.

Mr Kenny was responding to Shane Ross (Ind, Dublin South) who called on him to reform the process of appointing judges, which he claimed was “blatantly political”. The Independent TD said judicial appointments should be reformed in the same way planned for appointees to State boards, with appearances before Oireachtas committees.

Mr Ross claimed that three now retired lay-members of the 10-person Judicial Appointments Advisory Board were Fianna Fáil members and he called on the Taoiseach to ensure that “he will not fill the vacancies with the same political bias as that displayed by his predecessors”.

The former senator claimed the previous government had filled the vacancies for the three lay- or non-judicial members by “appointing a person who served formerly as Fianna Fáil’s director of elections in Dún Laoghaire and another who previously ran as a Fianna Fáil candidate for election to Europe”. He added that “I did not have time to research the third person put forward for appointment but I suspect that individual possesses similar credentials to the other two”. He asked if the Taoiseach would give an assurance that he would not “fill the vacancies I refer to with the same political bias as that displayed by his predecessors”.

Mr Kenny quipped that “I assure the deputy that I have no intention of appointing the Fianna Fáil director of elections to any position” but then told the deputy that he would give that assurance.

When Mr Ross raised the issue he said that along with appointments to State boards “appointment to the judiciary is another area that is blatantly political” and that the judicial appointments advisory board was “stuffed with political appointees”.

He said the government made appointments after seven names were submitted to it and asked if the Taoiseach “would consider introducing similar reforms in the appointment of members of the judiciary to those he has promised to introduce with the appointments to other State bodies”.

Mr Kenny pointed out that the rainbow government established the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board to “bring some form of process into being” in judicial appointments. The Taoiseach added that “members of the cabinet do not know the names of persons to be nominated as judges until these are produced by the minister for justice of the day”.