Sir, - Is not Mr Hugh O'Flaherty being somewhat specious in his assertion of judicial independence and his invocation of Article 35.2 of the Constitution to defend his refusal to explain his actions before a Committee of the Oireachtas? Article 35.2 reads: "All judges shall be independent in the exercise of their judicial functions and subject only to this Constitution and the law." Mr O'Flaherty spends some little time emphasising the independence from accountability of the exercise of judicial function and one cannot gainsay him.
But surely what is meant by the Constitution is that judges are independent in the exercise of their judicial functions only and not in all other actions taken, including those within the law, while they are salaried members of the judiciary? According to his own description of his actions, Mr O'Flaherty was not acting as a judge but as a concerned human being and therefore the Article of the Constitution cannot be cited in his defence. - Yours etc., Robert J. Towers,
Monkstown, Co Dublin.