Judges need to face up to reality

I HAVE just finished reading the judges’ treatise setting out their considered opinion of their position in regard to the forthcoming constitutional referendum on their remuneration.

The supercilious nature of the content must be particularly repugnant to the sensibilities of anyone who has suffered under the burden of unemployment, crippling mortgage repayments, pay cuts (especially public servants), etc.

These people must think they have been divinely chosen rather than appointed by government to the positions they hold.

How else could they believe that they had attained the right to special consideration and privileges over and above any other public servant including members of the very institution that appointed them?

They seem to believe that these privileges are sacrosanct and must therefore persist in perpetuity.

I had to remind myself that this was not an historical document from the 18th or 19th century or a scam that had been entered on the courts website by a hacker for a laugh.

The comedic nature of their self-opinion should be hugely appreciated, however.

When someone is brought into disrepute by the revelation of some past indiscretion, misdeed or hubristic tendency it often leads to public revulsion and humiliation.

A recurring question arises in the minds of us simple folk, we citizens of this state whom they apparently consider they outrank and oversee from their lofty perches.

That question is simply: who set your remuneration in the first place and what or whom was it measured against?

I fancy it is measured against other public servants/office holders who have experienced exactly the requisite measured reductions they so hopelessly fail to recognise.

That solves the judges’ only concern as expressed in their memorandum as to: “how that reduction should be achieved”.

What need of any further consideration or independent oversight when the parallelism required has already been established and seen to work well and without complaint over a prolonged period?

The judges need to start living in the present and face the reality of the future; anchoring themselves to the past and hankering after the privileges of a bygone age serves only to further diminish their standing in society.

OG Brennan

Monasterevin

Co Kildare