The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe will today select an Irish judge to sit on the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The position has been vacant for a year since the return of Judge John Hedigan from his term. He was then appointed to the High Court. It was expected that his replacement would be arranged last year, but this did not happen.
The Government has now forwarded the required three names to the president of the parliamentary assembly. These are David Keane BL, Dr Ann Power SC and Roger Sweetman SC.
On previous occasions, the Government placed its nominations in order of preference. But according to a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, the parliamentary assembly is no longer seeking a preference, so the names were submitted in alphabetical order, along with the applicants' CVs.
Mr Keane (43) is a law graduate of Trinity College Dublin, and holds two postgraduate law qualifications from UCD. He worked for five years as a solicitor with Garrett Sheehan's firm, which has a substantial criminal and human rights practice. He qualified as a barrister in 1998.
Mr Keane has been involved in cases such as Heaney and McGuinness v Ireland, where the applicants, charged with terrorist offences, successfully claimed before the European Court of Human Rights that the denial of their right to silence was coercive. He later represented them in their successful appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal.
Mr Keane is a contributing author to a book on criminal litigation and has written on Irish nationality and citizenship law.
Dr Power (45) has a degree in religious science from the Mater Dei Institute of Education and a Master of Education from Trinity. She taught English and philosophy for a number of years and also served as a member of the academic council of All Hallows College in Dublin for 12 years.
Dr Power qualified as a barrister at the King's Inns in 1993, and has just completed a doctorate in jurisprudence and legal philosophy at Oxford University.
She has lectured in jurisprudence at the King's Inns, covering topics such as human rights, natural law theory, and law and morality.
Dr Power became a senior counsel in 2006. Her publications include a three-part series in The Bar Review on "Ethico-legal Issues in Biomedicine".
Mr Sweetman (65) is a member of the Human Rights Commission. He worked as a solicitor for seven years, mainly with Herman Good and Co, before qualifying as a barrister in 1983.
He has practised mainly in the area of criminal law, both for the prosecution and the defence, and has been involved in constitutional challenges to aspects of criminal law. He has taught criminal law at the Law Society and became a senior counsel in 2002.
The Government also shortlisted Mr Sweetman in 2004 for appointment as the Irish judge on the European Court of Human Rights.
A judge from Luxembourg will also be selected today. The Irish members of the parliamentary assembly are Frank Fahey (FF), Patrick Breen (FG), Joe Costello (Lab) and Cecilia Keaveney (FF).