Mrs Nora Owen's revelation, dragged out of her by the Opposition, that she had a letter from Judge Dominic Lynch which she chose not to mention when she addressed the Dail last week, leaves her looking threadbare indeed. Where are we now with John Bruton's promise to conduct government as if it were behind a pane of glass?
Notwithstanding, there must be no rush to judgment until all the relevant information has come out. But that does not preclude the setting down of some principles against which this extraordinary sequence of events must be measured. Ministers are responsible for policy and for the formulation, along with the rest of the Cabinet, of Government decisions. Civil servants are responsible for their implementation.
But there are certain areas of activity where a minister has a personal input, where there must be a personal responsibility for follow through and where the duty of connecting related events is inescapable. The composition of the Special Criminal Court is one such case. Judges of the Special Court are hand picked by the government of the day. Their names, their disposition, their circumstances, their records are discussed at Cabinet. The Minister for Justice cannot escape culpability for failing to connect, in her own head, the contradiction between having removed Judge Lynch from the court and the fact that he remained part of a tribunal which was remanding accused persons in some of the most serious criminal cases known to the law.
Ministers also have a responsibility to ensure that the administrative machine over which they preside is functioning as it ought. Mrs Owen has had enough warning signals during her tenure at Justice. Yet, it appears, two years on she has no system to ensure that communications from great officers of State are evaluated properly and, if necessary, brought to her notice. How often does the Attorney General write to say that a man sitting on the bench in Green Street ought not to be there?
The Association of Higher Civil Servants has properly drawn attention to the over stretching of the Department itself and the inability of its members to provide ministers there with a credible service. And whatever about Nora Owen's ability or inability to run her office, this is the crux of the matter. It will remain a problem whether or not Mrs Owen stays as minister.
The Department of Justice and its ancillary services have been treated badly by successive governments. It is true that the Department has inherited a tradition of secrecy and introspection. It is charged with the least enviable tasks of maintaining the State's security apparatus. But politicians of every persuasion have refused to alter its structures or to reassign its responsibilities. The Whitaker report called for an independent prisons authority. The members of the Conroy commission wanted a police authority for the Garda. Senior judges have long sought a special agency to take on the running of the courts.
Governments of every hue have refused to respond. Indeed, Mrs Owen's positive response to the Denham report on the organisation of the courts has been the first crack in the monolith. The politicians have preferred to keep a tight control on the Garda on the prisons service, on the judiciary, on the myriad small powers and patronages which the Department of Justice dispenses. When they stand up in the Dail over coming days to express their outrage at Nora Owen's latest lapse, let us not fail to recognise the cant. And let us not imagine for one moment that those in opposition would be one whit more willing to ease their own fingers off the lever of power.