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.