Committee chair opposes bid to skip pre-legislative scrutiny of judicial appointments reform bill
Reading time: 2 minutes
James Lawless
Proposed legislation to overhaul the judicial appointments process should undergo pre-legislative scrutiny in spite of Justice Minister Helen McEntee’s opposition, the chair of the Oireachtas justice committee has said.
Ms McEntee last week wrote to the Ceann Comhairle to ask for the requirement for pre-legislative scrutiny to be waived because of the “same matters of reform” had already been extensively debated in recent years, The Irish Times reports.
However, James Lawless, barrister and Fianna Fáil TD, who chairs the justice committee, told the newspaper that the process should not be skipped simply because of previous debate on the Judicial Appointments Bill 2017.
The new Judicial Appointments Bill, announced last week, differs significantly from the bill proposed in 2017, notably in that it proposes a smaller commission helmed by the Chief Justice rather than a lay chairperson.
Mr Lawless said: “We have already placed this item on our work programme for the new year and there is an appetite on the part of the committee to review practice in this area so we may be keen to conduct such scrutiny.
“I think it benefits all legislation to be subject to detailed analysis of this type. I appreciate many discussions took place in the last Dáil but that was a different committee and a different bill.”
The decision on whether or not to grant a waiver to skip pre-legislative scrutiny will be made by the justice committee next month.
Share this article:
Subscribe to our newsletter to not miss articles like this one:
SUBSCRIBE
