High Court president urges women to apply for senior judicial posts

The president of the High Court has urged qualified women to apply for places on the bench when

lots of vacancies arise in the coming months.

With nine judges set to be appointed to the new Court of Appeal and at least three retirements due in the High Court in the coming months, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns said "a very dramatic transition" would take place.

Senior barristers say privately that cuts to judicial pay and pensions deter highly qualified members of the profession from applying for places on the bench. Mr Justice Kearns acknowledged the cuts but said he was confident barristers and solicitors would “respond positively” to the call.

He said he assumed the majority of appeals court judges would come from the High Court, which meant one or two of the five women in the High Court could be set to leave.

"If that's the case, the ratio of women in the High Court will be one in 10. I don't think in this day and age that that is a desirable state of affairs," he told the Bar Council annual conference.

“I’m very conscious of the fact that there are many, many able women lawyers in practice both at the Bar and indeed in solicitors’ firms who, it seems to me, could see this as a valuable opportunity and not one to be lost.”

‘Unprecedented’

Mr Justice Kearns referred to the creation of the new court as “an unprecedented situation in Irish judicial life – the creation, in mid-flight, of a brand new court”.

He said that if the legislation establishing the court was enacted before summer, the court could be up and running “with the minimum possible delay”.

In a separate address on the constitutional convention, its chairman, Tom Arnold, described the process as "highly innovative" and said it attracted a degree of public engagement that was "very impressive and perhaps a bit surprising".

While it met with initial scepticism from some academics, media and politicians, said Mr Arnold, the model had worked well and produced 38 recommendations, including 18 for constitutional change, to be debated in the Oireachtas and considered by Government.