Judicial Appointments

Ministers have nominated Judge Karen O'Connor and Conor Dignam SC for appointment to the High Court. Judge O'Connor is a Circuit Court judge in Dublin, while Mr Dignam is a practising barrister who called to the Bar in 1996 and the Inner Bar in 2011.

Future applicants for judicial office in Northern Ireland have been invited to help pilot a new online testing and assessment system. The Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Commission (NIJAC) is exploring the utility of using online platforms for testing and assessment and also as a mitigation m

The heads of the Bar and the Law Society should be considered for inclusion in the membership of the proposed new Judicial Appointments Commission, the Oireachtas justice committee has recommended. The joint committee on justice has completed pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme of the Jud

A public consultation has been opened to seek the views of the public on issues relating to judicial resources, including the number of judges needed in Ireland over the next five years. Responses to the consultation will be considered by the new judicial planning working group headed by Brigid McMa

Five senior barristers who were nominated last month for appointment as High Court judges will not sit on the bench until November at the earliest, the president of the High Court has said. Caroline Biggs SC, Marguerite Bolger SC, Emily Egan SC, Cian Ferriter SC and David Holland SC were nominated i

Judicial salaries in Northern Ireland and across the UK have been frozen for a year, new figures from the Ministry of Justice show. The Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Sir Declan Morgan, received a salary of £234,184 in 2019. This rose to £238,868 last year but has remained the s

European affairs minister Thomas Byrne has said the government is taking EU criticism of the low number of Irish judges "very, very seriously". Speaking at a virtual meeting hosted by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) yesterday morning, Mr Byrne said the judicial planning working group an

Five senior barristers have been nominated for appointment as High Court judges in a bid to clear the Covid-19 backlog. Caroline Biggs SC, Marguerite Bolger SC, Emily Egan SC, Cian Ferriter SC and David Holland SC will take up the new seats on the High Court bench created through legislation earlier

Irish judge Anthony Collins has been appointed as an Advocate-General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Judge Collins was nominated by the Irish government earlier this summer to fill the vacancy created by its appointment of Advocate-General Gerard Hogan to the Irish Supreme Cou

Dame Siobhan Keegan has been sworn into office as Lady Chief Justice of Northern Ireland at a ceremony in the Royal Courts of Justice. The first woman to hold Northern Ireland's top judicial post, Dame Siobhan was sworn into office in the Nisi Prius court in front of a small group of family and frie

The government's new Judicial Appointments Commission Bill is expected to be published by the end of next month, the Department of Justice has said. Ministers agreed late last year to draft legislation replacing the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board (JAAB) with a new Judicial Appointments Commiss

Two solicitors have been nominated for appointment as ordinary judges of the District Court. Ministers agreed at a meeting this week to nominate Máire Conneely and Brendan O’Reilly for the vacancies arising from the retirements of Judge Patrick Durcan and Judge Terence J. W. Finn.

Justice Minister Heather Humphreys has defended legislation providing for five extra High Court judges in the face of criticism from the president of the High Court that it is not enough. Ms Justice Mary Irvine told The Parchment, the magazine of the Dublin Solicitors' Bar Association (DSBA), that s

Northern Ireland’s legal profession has paid tribute to Sir Declan Morgan, who has retired as Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. Rowan White, president of the Law Society of Northern Ireland, and Bernard Brady QC, chair of the Bar of Northern Ireland, have both marked Sir Declan’s r

Legislative provisions paving the way for the appointment of five additional High Court judges have cleared the Dáil sooner than expected after being controversially brought forward in another bill. The government said last month that it would include the necessary legislative changes in the