The Chief Justice has said the establishment of a Judicial Council which was legislated for earlier this year must not be rushed.
In a speech to mark the beginning of the new legal term, Mr Justice Frank Clarke said while the judiciary were committed to the setting up of the council it needed to be done properly or run the risk of facing legal challenges in the future.
In his address this afternoon, Mr Justice Clarke also strongly criticised a delay in appointing new judges to the Court of Appeal and called for significant investment for digital technology as Ireland lags behind other jurisdictions.
The long awaited law to establish a Judicial Council was passed by the Oireachtas before the summer recess but has yet to be commenced.
The Council will oversee the education and training of judges, provide a mechanism for investigating complaints against the judiciary and will establish guidelines for sentencing and for awards of damages in personal injury cases.
The Department of Justice has said it was expected the Judicial Council would be established by the end of this year in response to comments earlier this month from the Alliance for Insurance Reform.
However, in a detailed address the Chief Justice said the council would exercise significant legal powers and it was important that its establishment and that of its committees were "legally robust or else we all run the risk of defeating the very purpose of bringing those important measures into play."
He added: "We need to do this properly and not just get it done. While I fully understand the desire to have the Council and its committees up and running as quickly as possible, it is important that we do not take shortcuts which could, in the medium term, make things worse rather than better."
The Chief Justice said it was important to set out publicly both what has been done, and what needs to be done, before the Judicial Council can be fully up and running.
While the legislation to establish the Judicial Council was a long time in gestation it became law in July, he said. The next step would be to fix an "establishment day", he explained.
However, he said the fixing of that date would trigger a whole series of mandatory timelines which are to be found in the Judicial Council Act.
"The Judicial Council consists of the entire Irish judiciary and the legislation requires that it have a first meeting, not more than three months from the establishment date. At that first meeting the Council is required to carry out a wide range of statutory functions including, importantly, the establishment of the principal statutory committees through which most of its work will be carried out.
"There are specific time limits in the legislation for the establishment of those committees," he said.
The Chief Justice said the judiciary shared the Minister for Justice's commitment to achieving the timescale for establishing the Council before the end of the year.
However, he said it was "of particular importance that there is a wide public understanding that the designation of an establishment day does not simply involve the Minister signing a statutory instrument. It requires all of us to be satisfied that the timelines that then become binding can be met".
Recruiting lay members to the various committees and ensuring the resources were in place for the functioning of those committees were factors which had to be taken into account before an establishment date could be set, he said.
More judges
The Chief Justice also criticised a delay in appointing new judges to the Court of Appeal which had created avoidable problems in that court and the High Court.
He revealed that cases due to be given a speedy hearing in the Court of Appeal will next week be taken out of the early hearing lists due to a lack of judges.
While legislation was passed before the summer to increase the number of appeal court judges from 10 to 16, the appointments have not yet been made.
Mr Justice Clarke said it was "regrettable" and "quite frankly most unfair to litigants who were given a reasonable expectation of an early hearing".
The process of removing cases from the list would have to continue for as long as the appointments were not made, he said. With the current number of judges, many cases would not be heard until 2021.
Other knock on effects included the probability that those appointed to the Court of Appeal would be promoted from the High Court. That would cause problems for the High Court until replacements are found, he said.
These problems could have been avoided if timely appointments had been made, he said. He said it was legitimate for him to ask that there now be no further delay.
Technology
The Chief Justice also said Ireland was somewhere behind the leading jurisdictions in the use of digital technology.
Significant investment in IT would be required to enable a radical increase in the use of digital technology in the courts over the next ten years.
"I was slightly bemused by a media comment which suggested that we in the courts could do a lot more to use digital technology. I agree. However, we cannot use what we do not have, and we cannot have that which is not resourced. I hope that the necessary resources will now be put in place," he added.
