The Government nominated Mr Justice Peter Kelly as the next president of the High Court and two new High Court judges at its final Cabinet meeting before Christmas.
Mr Justice Kelly’s appointment to the third highest judicial role in the State was greeted with surprise in legal and political circles as he is not seen as being close to either Government party and was involved in a public dispute with the Government two years ago.
He is to replace Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, who is retiring later this month.
Political sources said that while all candidates were viewed as having strong management skills and being widely respected, Mr Justice Kelly was viewed at the highest level as being the best man for the job.
He is seen as being a very hard-working and intelligent judge who is known for his independence. Appointed to the Court of Appeal since last year, he is a former head of the Commercial Court, a position he took up on the court’s establishment in 2004 and which he is widely viewed as having made a model of its type.
In 2013, Mr Justice Kelly was involved in a fall-out between the Government and the judiciary over judicial pay, pensions, and independence.
Afterwards, he was reported as having told a group of business leaders that judicial independence was being demolished “brick by brick”, and then minister for justice Alan Shatter suggested that Mr Justice Kelly might not have meant to convey such a strong view.
Statement
The Association of Judges of Ireland, of which Mr Justice Kelly was president, later issued a statement in support of the judge.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin referred to “an unprecedented breakdown in the relationship between the Irish judiciary and the Irish Government”, and the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Susan Denham, intervened to repair relations.
Prior to his appointment to the Commercial Court, Mr Justice Kelly was in the news for his strong views in relation to childcare cases that came before him. At one stage in 2000 he threatened to hold three government ministers in contempt over the treatment of a girl in care. In a 2012 interview with the Parchment, the journal of the Dublin Solicitors' Bar Association magazine, during a discussion as to whether he would like to be a Supreme Court judge, he said: "It's purely political in any event, the appointments to that court, and I never had any politics."
‘Independent judge’
Director general of the Law Society Ken Murphy said Mr Justice Kelly was “a fearlessly independent judge with a ferocious work ethic, a first class legal mind and an utter commitment to the highest of standards from himself and others.”
Chairman of the Bar Council David Barniville SC, said it very much welcomed the appointment and praised the judge’s administrative work.
Called to the Bar in 1973, Mr Justice Kelly was appointed to the High Court in 1996. He is known for his religious convictions. He is chairman of the Edmund Rice Schools Trust, chairman of the St Francis Hospice in Dublin, and a director of the Dublin Choral Foundation.
He has also served as invigilator in the annual business journalists’ pub quiz that has raised tens of thousands for the Simon Community.
Cork-based barrister Miriam O'Regan SC, and partnership law expert solicitor Michael Twomey were nominated to the High Court.
The Government also nominated solicitor Barry O'Callaghan as a judge of the Circuit Court, and solicitor Geoffrey Shannon, Special Rapporteur on Child Protection with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, as a District Court judge.
