Advisory committee to identify candidates for High Court president
![Advisory committee to identify candidates for High Court president](https://www.irishlegal.com/uploads/iln/msjusticeirvine.jpg)
Ms Justice Mary Irvine
A non-statutory advisory committee will be established to help identify candidates for the post of president of the High Court, the government has announced.
Ms Justice Mary Irvine, who has served in the role since 2020, is due to retire in July 2022. The 65-year-old judge told colleagues of her decision earlier this month.
On her appointment in 2020, she became the first woman to serve as president of the High Court and the first person in the history of the State to hold a fourth judicial office.
The advisory committee helping to choose Ms Justice Irvine’s successor will comprise the Chief Justice, the Attorney General and a lay member, and will establish its own procedures for inviting and assessing expressions of interest from applicants, including serving judges.
This is similar to the process used for the appointment of the president of the Court of Appeal in 2018, the presidents of the Circuit Court and the District Court in 2019, the president of the High Court in 2020, the president of the District Court in 2021 and the Chief Justice in 2021.
The proposed new Judicial Appointments Commission will eventually take over the process of assessing candidates for all senior judicial positions.