THE GOVERNMENT is due to consider the appointment of a chief justice ahead of the retirement on Friday of Mr Justice John Murray.
All judges in the State are nominated by the Government and then appointed by the President.
Mr Justice Murray’s retirement will not create a position on the Supreme Court, as it arises because he has served seven years in the post, not because he has reached the statutory age for retirement.
This age varies depending on when the judge was appointed, as judges appointed before 1995 retire at 72, while those after that retire at 70.
This complicates the question of who will succeed him.
Possible successors include those also sitting on the Supreme Court. However, Mr Justice Nial Fennelly, Ms Justice Fidelma Macken and Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan will reach the retirement age of 70 within the next year.
There is some question as to whether Mr Justice Fennelly is due to retire at 70 or at 72, as he sat as advocate general in the European Court of Justice from 1995 until his appointment to the Supreme Court in 2000.
If he is not due to retire until the age of 72, he is a strong contender for the position of chief justice, as he is hugely respected as a jurist. He has wide European and Irish experience, and is historically linked to Fine Gael.
The most senior judge on the Supreme Court is now Mrs Justice Susan Denham, who has a strong record of reform, having headed the Working Group on a Courts Commission, which gave rise to the Courts Service and steered into being the Commercial Court and many other innovations.
She is a strong supporter of the proposal to set up a judicial council, which would provide both a collective voice for the judiciary and a disciplinary mechanism, and which featured in the Coalition’s programme for government.
Reform of the courts and the legal system will be high on the agenda of the Government, especially in light of the demands of the troika, and it may well turn to Mrs Justice Denham to achieve it.
Another member of the court with a reforming agenda is the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, who has a strong reputation as a jurist and as an effective president. He too is a supporter of a judicial council.
Were he to become chief justice, it would create a vacancy at the head of the High Court. Given that there would be no vacancy in the Supreme Court, one of its number would have to take up this position. It is not apparent that any of them would want to.
Whoever is chosen, he or she will have to repair the relationship between the judiciary and the executive, which has been damaged in recent months by ongoing controversy over judges’ pay and the wording of the proposed referendum to permit its reduction.