Brian Curtin is not the only judge to be concerned about. The Supreme Court recently has demonstrated an arrogance that is unusual even from an unelected institution that exercises enormous unaccountable power. In the face of clear evidence that it got a crucial judgment wrong, it has stubbornly refused to correct its mistake, writes Vincent Browne.
But first Brian Curtin.
Several years ago a well-known judge of the superior courts sued a newspaper for libel. In the ensuing negotiations between the parties, the judge was asked for what amount he would settle the case. His response was "luach bhungalow" (the price of a bungalow).
Brian Curtin is a judge of the inferior courts, but when push comes to shove after the local and European elections, his settlement will be luach seacht bhungalow, indeed luach seacht bhungalow bhliss. He knows this, his lawyers know this, the Attorney General knows this and the Government knows this, and the rest is just strutting.
As this column is being written, Ministers are out in Farmleigh House at a Cabinet meeting (why they should waste their time traipsing out there and traipsing back in convoys of Mercedes is beyond me), no doubt plotting the introduction of impeachment proceedings in the Oireachtas, and over the next few days and weeks shapes will be thrown, jaws will be jutted, compensation talk will be dismissed.
But when the appalling vista of a constitutional crisis involving the Oireachtas and the judiciary looms - and the gigantic waste of time all this will entail - they will back off and Brian Curtin will get his luach seacht bhungalow bhliss, and we will all move on to the next crisis.
Back to the Supreme Court and its decision on an application by two of the killers of Jerry McCabe for release under the Good Friday agreement.
Gerry Adams claimed yesterday that in the course of the negotiations leading up to the agreement Bertie Ahern assured him privately that the section dealing with the release of prisoners would involve all prisoners, including those then being held on remand, having been charged with the murder of Jerry McCabe.
Many will question the credibility of Gerry Adams on the basis of his brazen claim never to have been a member of the IRA (I and tens of thousands of others know that to be false). But surely he is on sound footing in claiming that the issue of the release of prisoners was absolutely central to the signing by republicans of the agreement?
The Belfast Agreement provided for "mechanisms to provide for an accelerated programme for the release of prisoners convicted of \ offences" (referred to hereafter as qualifying prisoners . . .)
"Both governments will complete a review process within a fixed timeframe and set prospective release dates for all qualifying prisoners".
If the agreement were not to cover these prisoners, why did it not say that and why was its wording left in such a way as clearly to imply that it did cover these prisoners?
The Supreme Court, in its dismissal of an application by these prisoners for release under the agreement, dismissed the contention that in the exercise of his discretion under the Criminal Justice (Release of Prisoners) Act, 1998, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform acted in an unjustifiably discriminatory manner in releasing some prisoners but not these.
The court said: "The applicants, as persons who had been charged but not tried or convicted in respect of the offences in question at the time the Good Friday agreement was entered into, were not in the same position as persons who had been convicted and sentenced to lengthy terms of imprisonment at the time the agreement was concluded.
"While it was argued that the Minister's decision was a violation of the guarantee of Article 40.1 of the Constitution that all citizens should, as human persons, be held equal before the law, it must be again pointed out that it is not in dispute that the applicants are in a different category from other persons potentially entitled to the benefit of the agreement to the extent that they had been tried and sentenced at the time the agreement was concluded.
"The resultant difference in treatment cannot be said to amount to the form of unjust discrimination which has been regarded in other cases as infringing Article 40.1."
The implication being that no prisoners had been released under the agreement who had also been tried and sentenced subsequent to the signing of the agreement. This has now been established to be untrue. And yet the Supreme Court has adamantly refused to rectify its own error.
The perpetrators of some of the most gruesome murders in Northern Ireland, perpetrators who were also tried and sentenced since the agreement, have been released (if the agreement were not intended to include those why would that have occurred?). We demanded that the people of Northern Ireland suffer the pain and insult of that, yet we are not prepared to do the same down here.