The Gazette 1986

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GAZETTE APRIL 1986
INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY OF IRELAND GAZETTE
Vol. No. 80 No. 3 APRIL 1986
In this issue . . .
Society of Young Solicitors
21st Anniversary Seminar 79
Reciprocity of Qualifications and Employment
Opportunities Abroad 81
Crossword 97
Practice Notes
The Appointment of Judges (C'ontd. from p.69)
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procedure and sentencing, visits to prisons and youth
detention centres and at least a week spent sitting on the
Bench with a Circuit Judge.
Other Common Law jurisdictions have quite
sophisticated systems of training junior judges and indeed
of requiring more senior judges to participate in further
regular training programmes. To continue to rely on the
principle that all practising lawyers have acquired by
experience, osmosis or divine inspiration the ability to
administer justice in a satisfactory manner at 24 hours'
notice does not stand up to serious examination.
Increasingly when practitioners are specialising in
particular areas of law they are less likely than their
predecessors were to have a general knowledge of the
working of most areas of the law.
Suggestions have from time to time been made that some
panel might be established which would approve
candidates for appointment to the judiciary. Such panels
operate in very large jurisdictions such as the United
States in respect of appointments to the Federal Judiciary.
In a small community it could be invidious to have a panel
having the exclusive right to make recommendations for
such appointments even if such procedure were politically
acceptable. The introduction of a system of monitoring
candidates through part time appointments should lessen
the need for further monitoring. If it is still found
advisable to have some external monitoring system it
might be possible to adopt a vetting procedure whereby
the Government of the day would submit a list of
prospective appointees to the monitoring panel who
could indicate if any of the prospective appointees were
deemed to be unsuitable. In this way the Government
would retain its control over the making of the
appointments while the screening process would rule out
those who were for one reason or another consided to
be unsuitable candidates.
Under our Constitution judges once appointed are only
removable from office by joint resolution of the Houses
of the Oireachtas. This is clearly an important bulwark
in the independence of the judiciary. It does not however
follow that judges need necessarily be appointed for life.
Whether it is wise to appoint persons in their 30's to a
position which they will hold until they are at least 65
must be open to question. Judges are not immune to the
frailties of human nature and can become as different
and testy as time passes as the next man. There may well
be a case for putting a time limit, perhaps a period of
20 to 25 years, on the period for which a judge should serve. •
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