The establishment of a new body to oversee the conduct of judges and a relaxation of the in camera rule for family law cases are two of the key recommendations in a new report by the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution.
The report, a copy of which has been seen by The Irish Times, is to be sent to the Cabinet for consideration early next month.
The proposal for the establishment of a judicial conduct review body follows the Sheedy drink-driving controversy earlier this year which led to the resignation of two senior judges.
The report says: "It is a basic democratic right that those who feel aggrieved by a judge's conduct should have an avenue of recourse". However, "a clear line should be drawn in the public's mind between a judge's decisions and a judge's conduct". The report recommends that "a complaints body should have no power to retry cases or reverse decisions". It says: "The danger that a judge's reputation could be wrongly injured by the complaints process has to be tackled in the detailed legislation".
In what is likely to be a controversial recommendation, the report proposes that such a statutory body should be manned by the judges themselves.
Any member of the judiciary found guilty of a "minor complaint" would have to undergo counselling or training or could be asked to issue a written apology to the complainant. The report recommends that the conduct review body should carry out a full investigation of serious complaints. However, no legal sanction is proposed where a complaint is upheld. Instead the Government would decide whether the offence warranted an impeachment of the named judge.