Ex-judge attacks pay reform proposal

FORMER Chief Justice, Ronan Keane, has attacked the Government’s proposal to cut the pay of judges, arguing that it will make it more difficult to attract suitable candidates for the Bench and could make judges “dangerously subservient” to the Executive.

While acknowledging that judicial salaries have risen significantly in recent years and are now high by international standards, Mr Keane says that those increases were designed to narrow the gap between judges’s salaries and the incomes enjoyed by practising lawyers.

Writing in the law practitioners’ journal, The Irish Law Times, he argues that “the desirable objective of recruiting judges from the ranks of lawyers with the requisite abilities and experience” could be frustrated if candidates become unlikely to accept appointment to the bench because of the “serious reduction” which they face in their incomes.

In an article headlined “Judicial independence — the best we can do?” Mr Keane also fears for the independence of the judiciary by the proposal to abolish the constitutional immunity from income reduction that judges currently enjoy.

Although he agrees that, given the current economic crisis, a reduction in salary by way of constitutional amendment was justified, Mr Keane says: “That could have been done with little or no threat to judicial independence, had the amendment provided for the determination of any reduction by an independent body.”

Mr Keane also questions the wisdom of enshrining permanently a measure to address what may turn out to be a temporary economic crisis.

“It cannot be emphasised too strongly that, if passed, this amendment will become a permanent feature of the Constitution, incapable of amendment or repeal except by a further referendum.

“While intended to ensure that, in times of acute financial difficulty, judges do not enjoy immunity in respect of salary reductions applicable to other public servants, it will remain in place, for good or ill, when the present crisis is, as we all hope, an unhappy memory.”

Mr Keane says, that if the amendment is passed, it would entitle the Oireachtas to cut the salaries of judges by 50% or more, as the new provision benchmarks pay reductions with the public service.