Two judges and a law professor are the three candidates that have been put forward for election as Ireland’s next judge of the European Court of Human Rights.
The nominees approved by Government are Judge Fergal Gaynor, an international judge at Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, Ms Justice Úna Ní Raifeartaigh, a judge of the Irish Court of Appeal and Prof Colm Ó Cinnéide, professor of Constitutional and Human Rights Law at University College London.
One will be elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe as Ireland’s judge on the Strasbourg-based court, to replace Ms Justice Síofra O’Leary, who was elected as a judge of the ECHR in 2015 and as the court’s president in 2022.
After a public advertisement process, 17 applications for the ECHR position were received and were considered by an expert panel, convened by the Attorney General (AG) Rossa Fanning. The panel comprised the AG; former Chief Justice Frank Clarke; and Dr Suzanne Egan, Associate Professor at the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin.
The list of three candidates recommended by the expert panel in alphabetical order was approved by Government last November and forwarded to the parliamentary assembly late last month.
Judge Gaynor graduated with a law degree from Trinity College Dublin in 1994. His additional qualifications include a Master's degree in International Relations from the University of Cambridge and the degree of barrister at law from the King’s Inns, Dublin, in 2008.
Licensed to practice law in Ireland and England, he is an associate member of London-based Doughty Street Chambers. He was appointed as an international judge in 2020 at Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague and has served as a full-time judge since May 2021.
He was appointed by the UN secretary general in 2019 as reserve international co-prosecutor, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), and served part-time as the acting International Co-Prosecutor of the ECCC from July 2022 to September 2023.
His other roles include involvement in the investigation of human rights violations in Syria and Myanmar. He was involved as counsel over some nine years in prosecuting senior members of the Bosnian Serb leadership.
Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh qualified as a barrister in 1991 after attending UCD and King’s Inns. She was appointed a judge of the High Court in 2016 and elevated to the Court of Appeal in 2019.
As a barrister, her practice primarily involved serious crime including murder and sexual offences, and cases involving issues of constitutional law and the European Convention on Human Rights.
She was involved in the prosecution of several directors of Anglo Irish Bank after the financial collapse in 2008.
As a barrister, she was involved in a number of special public inquiries. She acted for the Oireachtas in its investigation of Judge Brian Curtin after his criminal trial on a child pornography charge resulted in an acquittal and in a later constitutional challenge by Judge Curtin aimed at having impeachment procedures ruled invalid. The impeachment motion lapsed after the judge resigned in 2006 on grounds of ill health.
She has represented Ireland both in the Irish courts and before the ECHR. Other roles include membership of committees established to monitor the treatment of people in police custody and create guidelines for police interviews of vulnerable witnesses during criminal investigations.
Prof Ó Cinnéide has held the position of Professor of Constitutional and Human Rights Law at University College London (UCL) since 2015. Having obtained a law degree from University College Cork in 1995, he graduated as a barrister at law from the King’s Inns in 1997.
He has been a member of the European Committee of Social Rights of the Council of Europe for ten years and has published in the areas of European and international human rights law, comparative constitutional law, EU law and anti-discrimination law.
The positions held by him include membership of the Future of Equality Legislation Advisory Committee, which advised the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission on proposed amendments to Irish anti-discrimination law between 2022-2023.
He was a specialist legal adviser to two committees of the UK Houses of Parliament, the Women & Equalities Committee and Joint Select Committee on Human Rights. He has given expert evidence on human rights matters to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the European and UK parliaments.
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