This Bill has four main objects. First of all, it proposes to increase the jurisdiction of the Circuit and District Courts in civil cases so as to bring the jurisdiction of these courts more into line with the present day value of money. Secondly, it provides for a rearrangement of the Circuit Court circuits and the District Court districts. Thirdly, it allows for the appointment of an additional High Court judge, which appointment has become necessary because of the congestion of business in the High Court. Finally, it authorises increased salaries for judges and justices. In addition to its main provisions the Bill contains a few miscellaneous provisions about which I think there will be no difficulty.
There is not much I need to say in regard to judicial salaries. The Bill carries out the recommendations of the Select Committee of the Dáil except in so far as the date of payment is concerned. The view of the Government is that, because the increased salaries proposed in the Bill are so much better than the salaries originally proposed, it would not be fair to the taxpayer to ask the Oireachtas to authorise payment of the new salaries from a date earlier than 1st April, 1953.
As regards judicial pensions, it is proposed that a judge appointed in future shall not be entitled to retire on pension until he has reached the age of 65 years unless his retirement is brought about by ill-health. The same provision will apply to justices. In addition, the Bill proposes that the qualifying period of service of a justice who is to get full pension shall be reduced from 30 years to 20 years. The pension provisions of the Bill will not apply to existing judges at all, but they will apply to existing justices, if they so elect.
Section 5 of the Bill deals with the expenses of members of the judiciary and the section will replace Section 77 of the Courts of Justice Act, 1936, which has been found defective and difficult of interpretation. It is not intended to alter the existing practice in regard to the payment of these expenses and Section 5 of the Bill will simply provide a clear and unequivocal statutory foundation for what has always been the practice.
As I intimated in the Dáil, the Government does not propose to proceed with the reorganisation of the Circuit Court circuits, nor do I propose to go ahead with the reorganisation of the District Court districts, until the report comes to hand of a special committee we propose to set up to inquire into the operation of the Courts of Justice Acts. The Bill, however, proposes that power to re-organise should be given to the Government in the case of the circuits and to the Minister for Justice in the case of the districts. In regard to the circuits the figures available leave no doubt that the work in the Circuit Court is unevenly distributed and that in some circuits there is too little work, whereas in the Dublin circuit the two judges permanently assigned may well have too much work. The same is the position in regard to the District Court districts, outside the Dublin Metropolitan District.
When the circuits have been re-organised, the idea is that there shall be one supernumerary circuit judge who will be available to assist any of his colleagues who, from time to time, may need assistance. In the District Court, we will probably have five or six extra supernumerary justices who will also be available to assist their colleagues. This position in both the Circuit and District Court will last for a few years and will act as an insurance against any particular circuit or district created under the Bill having too much work. As I said, however, it is not proposed to go ahead with the reorganisations until the report of the special committee is available. By that time, we will be able to see more clearly how the increased jurisdiction is affecting the work of both courts.
I now come to the proposal to increase the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court and the District Court. In both cases, the reason for the increase is the same, namely, that money has lost more than half its value since the present financial limits were set by the Courts of Justice Act, 1924. In the Bill as introduced the increase in tort was limited to £25 but the demand to increase the tort jurisdiction to £50 was so insistent in the Dáil and so strongly supported by a number of Deputies on both sides of the Houses, including solicitor Deputies, that I agreed to do so. The matter was left to a free vote and the Dáil decided by a large majority that the jurisdiction in tort and contract should be the same.
I come now to deal with the miscellaneous provisions in the Bill. Section 12 reintroduces a practice which existed during the emergency under which High Court judges on circuit did not visit appeal towns where there was no business. This section was put in at the suggestion of the president of the High Court. Section 13 of the Bill allows for the remittal and transfer of actions on consent of the parties by the master of the High Court. This section was also put in at the suggestion of the president of the High Court.
Section 15 allows for the reconstitution of the Superior Court Rules Committee and provides that the Council of the Incorporated Law Society shall be entitled to two nominated members, instead of the president of the society who is at present an ex-officio member. This is being done at the request of the society. The section also clears up a doubtful matter concerned with the power of the rules committee to make rules in regard to election petitions.
Section 19 of the Bill validates a practice which is considered to be of doubtful legality and under which part-heard actions are transferred from one venue in a circuit to another. Section 29 of the Bill clears up a difficulty which arises under the Rent Restrictions Acts and this section was inserted because of a recommendation of the Rents and Leaseholds Commission.
Section 31, of the Bill, which deals with desertion cases, validates an existing practice which we have been advised has no legal foundation. Finally, Section 30 of the Bill makes it quite clear that there is an appeal to the Circuit Court from an order of the District Court under Section 1 of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1907.
The foregoing are the main provisions of the Bill and the other provisions are purely consequential. The immediate cost of granting to the members of the judiciary the increased salaries proposed and of providing an additional High Court judge will be approximately £29,000 a year but the eventual cost, when the number of circuits and districts have been reduced, is likely to be no more than £16,000 a year. The increased salaries will, of course, mean higher pension charges and there may be some slight increases in judicial travelling and subsistence expenses.
Before I conclude I should like, as I did in the Dáil, to thank, on behalf of the Government, the members of the Select Committee of the Dáil who so kindly gave their time to the study of judicial remuneration and produced such a helpful report. I should also like to thank those members of the two branches of the profession who saw me from time to time and raised various points in regard to the Bill. At times we were able to accept the arguments advanced and, where we were unable to accept them, they were nevertheless given the most careful consideration. In all cases the views of each branch of the profession were brought to the attention of the Government. I am saying all this in case there may be any suggestion that the decisions in regard to the matters in the Bill were come to without full examination.