I move amendment No. 2:—
To delete sub-section (2).
This proposes to delete the provision in this section that the President of the Circuit Court shall be an ex officio High Court judge. During the course of the Second Reading debate on this measure, I gave in detail my reasons, which were reasons in principle, for my objection to the proposal to make the President of the Circuit Court a High Court judge. It seems to me that the whole scheme of the courts of justice code is to keep the various divisions of the judicial system in separate compartments. That scheme has its roots in and is derived from the Constitution itself—the 1922 Constitution, followed as it was by the present Constitution. I endeavoured, during the course of the remarks I made on the Second Reading, to make it perfectly clear that my objection was one in principle and not to any particular person who might or might not be appointed to the position.
It is highly undesirable that the President of the Circuit Court should be in the position that he can be called upon to be a journeyman in the High Court. I think he will have a position of dignity and influence as the president of the court to which he has been appointed, namely, the Circuit Court. The system in this country, as I understand it, consists, under the Constitution, of courts which will have full original jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters. These courts are known as the High Court and I emphasise that the provisions in the Constitution from which this courts judicial system is derived speak of that court, which has full original jurisdiction, as the High Court. It is one court—the High Court. From that High Court, there is an appeal to the ultimate tribunal in this country, the final court of appeal, the Supreme Court. It is again referred to as the Supreme Court, emphasising that it is one separate, self-contained judicial entity.
The Constitution then provides that, in addition to these two divisions of the judicial system, two of the superior divisions of the courts, there shall be courts of local and limited jurisdiction. The Circuit Court is one of these courts of limited and local jurisdiction and the District Court is the other Again, it will be observed that the idea running through the whole system is carried into the Circuit Court, which is referred to as the Circuit Court. It is not referred to as Circuit Courts—the Circuit Court of the City of Dublin, of the City of Cork or of this, that or the other. It is the Circuit Court. Similarly, the District Court, with justices sitting in various parts of the country, is referred to not as a series of courts but as one court.
The whole fundamental idea traceable from the Constitution is that each of these tribunals should be one court —the Supreme Court, the High Court, the Circuit Court and the District Court. It is, in my submission, contrary to principle, and, I would venture to say, contrary to what was envisaged in the Constitution, that there should be such a mongrel system, as is proposed in this Bill, that the head of the Circuit Court should be a member of the High Court. These arguments are based upon a consideration of the judicial system as it exists to-day and the provisions of the Constitution.
I adverted to some of the extraordinary consequences which might ensue from the present proposals. I drew attention to the fact that this President of the Circuit Court, sitting as a journeyman High Court judge, would be entitled to hear appeals from his colleagues. In accordance with the comity of the courts as given effect to in the past 22 years during which our own judicial system has been in operation, each of the Circuit Court judges followed any decision on similar facts or laying down the law given in a previous case by one of his colleagues. Now we will have the system that one of the circuit judges, the chief of the circuit judges, may find himself hearing an appeal from a judge of the Circuit Court who gave a judgment following a previous decision given by the President of the Circuit Court, and considering whether or not he will reverse the judgment he has given, and which has been followed by his own colleagues.
It is fatuous and useless for the Minister to say, as he said in his reply on Second Reading, that this President of the Circuit Court will not be used to hear Circuit Court appeals. What authority has the Minister to say that? What authority has the Minister to bind future judges in the conduct of their proceedings? What right has he to say that the President of the High Court will not use this judge at any time in the future? What control has he over him? Maybe the Minister thinks he will not be used. The very fact that he says he will not be used is itself a condemnation of this proposal.
I object, too, to the second so-called argument of the Minister in favour of this proposal, that it may happen that some of the High Court judges may become ill and that it would require legislation to appoint a substitute. The system has been in operation for 23 years and no occasion has arisen for the appointment of a deputy High Court judge to deal with the case of a High Court judge being ill. It is to be assumed, and I think it is a fact, that the High Court judges as constituted at the moment are capable of performing and do perform their duties, and that the business of the High Court is reasonably up-to-date, and can certainly be kept fully up-to-date by a little adjustment of certain sittings. I find, therefore, on a perusal of the Minister's reply to the arguments I advanced on Second Reading, that he has given no justification whatever for this proposal. I am perfectly prepared to accord and will accord during my professional time homage to the dignity of the position of President of the Circuit Court and to the person who holds that office, irrespective of who he may be, but I think it would be more in accordance with that dignity that he should be a colleague among colleagues, that he should be primus inter pares rather than a High Court judge masquerading as a circuit judge or a circuit judge masquerading as a High Court judge.
I have been unable to find any reason in principle for this proposal. It was not without serious consideration that I made the objection I did make on Second Reading. I felt that anything I would say in opposition to this proposal might be subject to serious misunderstanding, but I felt an impelling sense of duty to oppose the measure and to draw the Minister's attention to the consequences of the proposal. Not having obtained any reason, and receiving no argument from the Minister as to why this proposal should be accepted, or as to why it was conceived, I felt compelled to put down this amendment to the section, in spite of my personal dislike of having to repeat the arguments I have had to repeat here to-night. I urge upon those Deputies who have no particular knowledge of, or intimacy with, the working of the courts to ponder upon the arguments I have advanced. They are advanced in a mood of extreme seriousness and with every sense of responsibility. I am unable now, after the lapse of time since the Second Reading debate, to see any reason in principle, or even in expediency, for the proposals contained in the Bill, and I urge the Minister to withdraw them.