REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A DINNER TO MARK A CONFERENCE OF CIRCUIT & COUNTY COURT JUDGES
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A DINNER TO MARK A CROSS BORDER CONFERENCE OF CIRCUIT COURT AND COUNTY COURT JUDGES FARMLEIGH
A chairde go leir, I am grateful to Mr. Justice Matt Deery for his kind invitation and his words of welcome and delighted to be part of this second cross-border gathering of distinguished members of the judiciary from the Circuit Court and the County Court. Your inaugural meeting was in a place close to my heart and former home in the Kingdom of Mourne, Newcastle, County Down and now you are even closer to my more recent abode here in the Phoenix Park. I see some old friends and colleagues too among them Judge Tom Burgess, Recorder of Belfast who soldiered with me for many years on the Council of Legal Education until we both sought and were granted political asylum elsewhere!
Tomorrow you will deal with the serious conference issues but tonight is every bit as important for this is where we invest in getting to know and befriend one another. Even if you have never met each other you already know that you have a lot in common. You work as judges in different jurisdictions with different constitutional frameworks and laws but you share a centuries old historical common law culture, a decades old European Union legal culture and you both work within the context of democratic legislatures which produce voluminous legislation. You each also deal on a daily basis with human beings who make the same mistakes, get into the same trouble and present the same chaotic problems and a few utterly unique ones besides, that you try to straighten out or resolve. The law you spent acres of library time learning in your law student days is probably all past its sell-by date by now and with the help of the Judicial Studies Institute and Judicial Studies Board of Northern Ireland your profession has long been engaged in the life long learning, training, updating and reskilling that is essential, along with your independence and integrity, to high standards in the delivery of legal services.
Most people are fairly stressed when attending court, in whatever capacity. In the past, along with their anxiety, they had to endure very poor facilities, sometimes consulting with their lawyers about private matters in corridors in very close quarters to the public and others. But thankfully many courthouses have been significantly improved in recent years. In Belfast you have the showcase Laganside Complex and now here in Dublin just at the entrance to the Phoenix park we have the already iconic “pantheon” which is the new Criminal Courts Complex. It just opened its doors this week and its design is a perfect example of practical cross-border cooperation for the Northern Ireland Courts Service were able to offer considerable wisdom and guidance based on their experience in Laganside. I know a number of judges were able to feed their views into that consultative process through the Courts Service Board and its various committees so cooperation and collaboration is not just about the finer points of legal detail but about what makes for decent and efficient working environments. Dublin’s eye-catching new complex is the largest court building project since Gandon’s Four Courts was completed at the turn of the 18th Century and it is the highlight of a ten-year programme to refurbish nearly fifty courthouses across Ireland. They are not just designed to be emblematic architectural pieces but places that fully respect in an empathetic and practical way, all the people who use them whether as professionals or members of the public
In an ideal world, nobody ever wants to be before you in a courtroom, no matter how comfortable or architecturally or technologically impressive whether as plaintiff or defendant, accused, victim or witness. But when the vagaries of life put people in that position it is your leadership in that court-room that sets the standard. They may emerge happy or unhappy with outcomes. Outcomes are dictated by the facts and the law but your professionalism is the best, the surest guarantor of the credibility, fairness and integrity of process. In the interlocking scheme of things that keep our societies functioning and fair despite the messes and miseries that human beings are capable of creating, the courts keep watch over the boundaries that make life bearable and humanly decent. It’s a critical job and that is another thing you share in common, is the responsibility not just for the fair functioning of your courtroom but the fair functioning of society itself. You are watched, monitored, analysed, critiqued, appealed, by public, press and appellate and other structures. You deserve this night off to commiserate with one another and then tomorrow we know you will put your heads down and heads together to distill your collective experiences, knowledge, and intuition so that North and South on this island we can be sure of you and proud of you because if we are sure of you and proud of you we can be sure of ourselves, and proud of ourselves as citizens of jurisdictions where justice prevails no matter what, inside courtrooms and outside. And since you had a vocation to be judges be glad you chose the law and not football refereeing! I wish you all the best with your deliberations and thank you again for inviting me to be with you this evening. Go raibh maith agaibh go leir.