Retired Supreme Court judge Catherine McGuinness has said it would be preferable if serving judges did not comment on cases they were involved in because they might become controversial figures.
Mrs Justice McGuinness, president of the Law Reform Commission, said it was difficult for her to say what other people should do, "but I think on the whole I would not talk about any case that I had been the judge in".
She was speaking in the wake of the controversy over Mr Justice Paul Carney's criticism of the victim impact statement made by Majella Holohan before Wayne O'Donoghue was sentenced for her son Robert's manslaughter.
Asked by The Irish Timesfor her view on judges making public statements, she said: "I think for actual serving judges, it's actually better to stay quiet, to tell you the truth."
She said she only felt free to speak out on certain issues now because she had retired from the bench and was president of the Law Reform Commission. The commission was interested in the views of experts and the public as it formulated policy, so it was important to speak out on occasion, she said.
Mrs Justice McGuinness said it had become more common for members of the judiciary to talk about their work, and perhaps there was no difficulty if the comments related to principles or technical issues, rather than personalities.
But the danger was that "you then become a controversial figure", she added.
Mrs McGuinness was involved in the first divorce referendum campaign but she deliberately excluded herself from the second campaign because she was then a judge. "It was quite hard not to [become involved]", she said, but it was important that a perception of bias was not created.
She said there was no question that her involvement in a divorce campaign would affect her impartiality, but it could have affected the public's perception of her impartiality.
"This is the problem about judges, not so much that it affects them, but it affects the perception of them. They really would be better off staying fairly quiet."
Speaking earlier on RTÉ Radio, she said Mr Justice Carney had raised some very important issues. "I think it's very unfortunate that he did so through, as it were, attacking Mrs Holohan, but then on the other hand one must remember that he wouldn't have got anything like the amount of publicity for what he said had he not done that."
Mrs Justice McGuinness said punishment meted out by a court was about marking the community's disapproval of an act, as well as rehabilitation. "I think perhaps Judge Carney went a bit over the top on rehabilitation," she said.
Meanwhile, former justice minister Nora Owen said that Mr Justice Carney appeared more sympathetic to Wayne O'Donoghue's situation than towards Robert Holohan's family.
