No surprise as ‘safe pair of hands’ takes top court post

TWO shocks in two days would have been too much for the system to bear. Less than 24 hours after Charlie McCreevy surprisingly acquiesced to take the European job, the Government made its other core appointment of the summer.

Thu, 22 Jul, 2004 - 01:00

Harry McGee, Political Editor

In marked contrast to the clamour of the previous evening, there were no raised eyebrows or dropped jaws when John Murray was named as the person to occupy the top judicial position in the land for the next seven years.

Murray's elevation was almost inevitable. For several months, speculation as to the identity of Ronan Keane's successor as Chief Justice mostly centred on the Limerick-born Supreme Court judge. He had the requisite judicial and academic experience, serving a total of 13 years as judge at the highest level, in the European Court of Justice and the Supreme Court to which he returned in 1999. He has also been Professor of Law at the University of Louvain.

He also has the concomitant political pedigree, having served as Attorney General (AG) in Fianna Fáil administrations during the 1980s and early 1990s. Though the extent of the influence of political affiliations is arguable in the Irish context (one barrister told the Irish Examiner, if anything, it is politics with a small 'p') Murray has nonetheless been associated with FF. That long-time connection did him no harm as the Government decided who would become CJ, according to a senior legal source.

Murray, like his slightly younger Supreme Court colleague, Adrian Hardiman, marked himself out as a rising star in the Law Library at almost an outrageously young age.

He was born in Limerick in 1943 to a relatively well-to-do family his father was a civil servant and his mother a teacher. He is the eldest of four sons, all of whom made a mark for themselves. Eugene became editor of the RTÉ current affairs programme, Prime Time, and later a senior executive in RTÉ. Michael became State Solicitor for Limerick and Hugh, an architect, was a founding partner of the firm, Murray O'Leary.

During the 1960s in UCD, Murray was a two-time president of the Union of Students in Ireland. After qualifying as a barrister in 1967, he was later an unsuccessful FF local election candidate in Dublin.

He is married to Gabrielle Walsh, a daughter of the late Supreme Court judge, Brian Walsh, whose views on jurisprudence and moral issues (especially abortion) have been said to be influential upon Murray. In some of his own judgments in recent years, he has quoted with approval some of the dicta of Walsh, widely regarded as a brilliant and activist judge when it came to constitutional matters.

Within a few years of joining the Law Library, Murray was involved in a number of high-profile cases, notably the Arms Trial, where he represented Neil Blaney. He was also on the Government's legal team when it challenged Britain at the European Court of Human Rights in the mid 1970s over torture of prisoners in Northern Ireland.

He was first appointed AG at the age of 39 in 1982 for one of the short-lived Charles Haughey-led governments. He returned as AG in 1987 and was re-appointed in 1989, when FF first went into coalition with the PDs.

As AG, Murray was responsible for several key decisions that aroused controversy. The most notable was his refusal to extradite Father Patrick Ryan to England (he was facing explosives charges) on the grounds that the British media's demonisation of the Tipperary priest could have prejudiced his trial.

In 1991 he was appointed to the Court of Justice in Luxembourg where he served for eight years. He was two years into his second six-year term at the Court, when the Government appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1999.

Murray would not be viewed as an activist judge, and has been described in legal circles as bright, efficient, slightly conservative, and mostly as "a safe pair of hands".

In two of the most publicised judgments on Constitutional interpretations in recent years, he has sided with the majority on decisions that have attracted criticism from some quarters for being narrow, literal and overly-restrictive readings of the Constitutional provisions.

In the Jamie Sinnott case, Murray ruled along with the majority that the constitutional right to primary education did not extend to a person who had reached the age of the 19.

In the case that determined whether non-national parents of Irish-born children should be entitled to residency rights, he also sided with the majority in rejecting the claim.

He said that in the circumstances of the case, he was satisfied the minister's decision to deport the parents had been shown to be reasonable and rational in determining there existed good and sufficient reasons associated with the common good for the making of deportation orders.

In the months leading up to his appointment, Murray has been considered the natural choice for the Government to make. He has the experience and credentials (especially in European law, which will play a larger role in domestic law in future). He has the intellectual ballast and, significantly, the strong FF connections.

Career profile: From the Bar to the Four Courts

MR JUSTICE Murray has held a number of prestigious posts in the legal and academic worlds over the past 40 years. These positions include:

1964-1966: President of the Union of Students in Ireland.

1967: Called to the Bar of Ireland.

1981: Called to the Inner Bar.

1982: First spell as Attorney General of Ireland (August-December).

1982-1987: Private legal practice at the Bar of Ireland.

1987-1991: A second, longer spell as Attorney General of Ireland.

1991-1999: Judge of the Court of Justice of the European Communities.

1993: Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, at University of Limerick.

1994: Visiting Lecturer, Fordham University, New York city.

1994-2002: Visiting Lecturer to Georgetown University Summer School in Heidelberg and Florence.