Judge Desmond Zaidan, who is among the more outspoken judges on the District Court bench, is no stranger to making headlines.
He is now at the centre of a controversy over granting 24-hour disqualification orders for some road traffic offences under a legal loophole, enabling drivers to avoid exceeding the penalty points threshold and being disqualified for up to six months.
Judge Zaidan is understood to have granted most of the 33 orders granted over the past two years.
In contrast, lawyers describe the judge as very tough when it comes to speeding offences, including imposing custodial sentences.
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He is considered sensitive and empathetic in family law cases and when dealing with offenders with mental health and addiction issues. He is not keen on suspended sentences and is more likely to deal with more minor drug and other offences via fines and donations.
Now aged 62, Zaidan was born to Lebanese parents and his early education was in Lebanon and Sierra Leone before he moved to Ireland. He attended Rockwell College before going to Trinity College Dublin, where he graduated with a BSc and a MA.
Having gone on to study at the King’s Inns, he was called to the Bar in 1990. His practice focused on criminal law and prosecution work.
He was aged just 43, making him one of the youngest judges in the country, when appointed by the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats government to the District Court bench in late 2006.
He spent 16 months in the Donegal district and, on his departure, was praised by a local Garda inspector for helping reduce crime and public order offences in the county. Gardaí believed a major factor in reducing public order offences was the judge’s decision to cut 30 minutes off club late-night drinking extensions from 2.30am to 2am.
After Donegal, Judge Zaidan was appointed to the busy Kildare district and has presided since at Naas and Athy District Courts. He has consistently complained about long court lists and has sought the appointment of another judge to the district.
The busy lists have led to him block adjourning cases, resulting in sometimes lengthy delays getting cases on.
In 2014, it emerged from media reports based on information released under the Freedom of Information Act that Judge Zaidan had written twice in 2012 to then taoiseach, Enda Kenny, expressing interest in a promotion.
His first letter, expressing interest in promotion to the Circuit Court, included 11 newspaper cuttings about cases he had heard in Donegal and Kildare. He claimed to have contributed to a reduction in road fatalities, and to being the first judge to use provisions of the intoxicating liquor acts to assist in reducing public order offences.
In his second letter, Zaidan said he had recently completed a course in European criminal law and his experience was “more fitting for the High Court”.
His decisions have rarely been judicially reviewed but, in 2020, the High Court found objective bias against him over declining to accept a barrister’s word that an offence to which her client had pleaded guilty no longer carried a custodial sentence.
