Ms Justice Úna Ní Raifeartaigh

The Court of Appeal judge was the overwhelming choice of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), with only a handful of votes cast yesterday for rival candidates Judge Fergal Gaynor and Professor Colm Ó Cinnéide.

Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh practised as a barrister for 23 years, primarily in criminal cases and those involving issues of constitutional law and the European Convention on Human Rights, before being appointed to the High Court in 2016 and then the Court of Appeal in 2019.

A graduate of University College Dublin, she was also Reid professor of criminal law, criminology and penology at Trinity College Dublin for a number of years.

Elected for a nine-year term, Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh will succeed Judge Síofra O’Leary as the Irish judge on the Strasbourg court.

In 2022, Judge O’Leary became the first woman and the first Irish person to serve as president of the ECtHR.

Commenting on the election result, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said: “Ireland is firmly committed to the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.

“The European Court of Human Rights plays a fundamental role in ensuring the observance of those rights and freedoms by the parties to the Convention.

“The authority of the Court, which is tasked with interpreting and applying the Convention, rests on the calibre of its judges.

“I am confident that Ms Justice Úna Ní Raifeartaigh will perform her functions as a judge, in the words of the declaration which she will make before taking up office, ‘honourably, independently, and impartially’.”