Judicial independence: Register may resolve difficulties

Events of recent days, weeks and months have shown how very important it is to have a reliable and utterly trustworthy justice system.

The death on Saturday of Gerry Conlon, aged just 60, was a reminder of what can go wrong, of how a terrible injustice can be inflicted when the courts are hijacked to serve political ends.

His premature death was a reminder too that the independence of our courts and our judiciary is worth fighting for and that they are one of the cornerstones of a society where fairness has some value.