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in the Physics Theatre at Earlsfort Terrace, Dub
lin, last night.
When a vacancy arose, he said, the Bar Council,
the
Incorporated Law Society and
the Chief
Justice should be enabled to submit three names
each for the post which would go, preferably, to
the person whose name was most mentioned. In
this way the Government would not be-deprived
of its power of decision, but neither would law
yers, regarded as being at the top of their pro
fession, be passed over.
Mr. MacBride said there was a danger under
the present system that the most competent law
yers might be passed over because the Govern
ment would naturally prefer to put in its own
supporters.
Earlier the Minister for Justice, Mr. O'Malley,
had replied to criticism by the Society's Auditor,
Mr. Colm Alien, of the present system of selecting
judges.
Mr. O'Malley asked were we quite sure that
any other sponsors or nominators would
be
purer, more free from bias, more responsive to
the feelings of the public than the Government.
Were they quite sure that we would get better
judges
if people nominated
to
the bench had
to run the gauntlet of a public inquisition? Were
they likely to get the best brains at the Bar to
accept that?
On legal aid, Mr. O'Malley said that, much as
he would like to do so, he could not at the present
time at all events bring in a scheme of legal aid in
civil cases.
He could not do so because the taxpayers' re
sources were limited and could not provide all
at once for everything they would like to provide.
Mr. Alien, speaking on "Justice and the Rule
of Law," had said: "The first guideline laid down
for a fair trial is that the judge should be absolute
ly independent of the Government. This is re
garded as an essential requirement for justice
under the rule of law. In agreeing wholeheartedly
with this principle, one is forced to admit that
under the system operating in this country at the
present time this is not clearly seen to be so.
"While not wishing to criticise any of the judi
ciary, who were rightly held in the highest esteem
by the legal profession and, indeed, by the gen
eral public, for their integrity, it had to be said
that the system of appointment to the Bench pre
scribed by our constitution was an undesirable
one.
"The position is that the Government nominates
a member of the legal profession, who is, in turn,
appointed by the President. I do not believe that it
should
be at
the discretion of a politically-
appointed body
to appoint members of
the
judiciary. I believe that it is an unhealthy system
which could be manipulated by an unscrupulous
government
to such an extent that we would
have a judiciary which would merely be an exten
sion of a particular political party."
VIOLENCE ON INCREASE
In an interview published in the December 10th
issue of a Swiss newspaper,
La Tribune de
Geneve,
Mr. Sean MacBride declares that certain
governments not only
tolerate but
encourage
brutality. Mr. MacBride has recently retired as
secretary-general of the International Commission
of Jurists, which has its seat in Geneva.
In the interview, Mr. MacBride says that the
past three years have seen a considerable escala
tion of violence. "In Brazil and Greece, torture
has become commonplace. It is used not only to
extort confessions but to terrorise the opposition.
They, in their turn, are pushed into reacting just
as violently, and thus we have all these plane
hijackings and kidnapping of diplomats which are
contraventions of human rights.
"Youth is losing faith in the sense of moral
responsibility of its elders".
Mr. MacBride proposes three courses of action
to enable the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights of 1948 to be applied. The first would be
to increase the number of courts, modelled on the
Strasbourg institution, where not only States but
also individuals could have grievances heard.
The second would set up an international judi
cial authority which would hear cases alleged to
have contravened the Hague and Geneva Con
ventions, and the Convention on Genocide.
The third would be the establishment of a high
commissioner of human rights whose main role
would be to help members of the United Nations
to activate the principles of the 1948 declaration.
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