Levying the judges: professor gets it is wrong

IN his letter (March 6), Prof David Gwynn Morgan states that the Government’s contention regarding the constitutionality of a public service levy on judicial salaries is “just plain wrong”. He cites the judgment of Kingsmill Moore in O’Byrne v Minister for Finance (1959) for this proposition.

I think Prof Gwynn Morgan is wrong on that count for the following reasons:

First, the O’Byrne case concerned a tax which applied equally to all members of the population — not simply those in the civil service.