Michael McDowell: 'A cowardly government will select a new Chief Justice through a squalid little beauty parade'

This move is a grubby capitulation to the ill-informed obsession of Shane Ross

In a grubby capitulation to the ill-informed obsession of one minister, our weak-kneed, frightened government has decided to appoint a three-person committee, consisting of the President of the Court of Appeal, the Attorney General and the chairperson of the Public Appointments Commission, to advise it on the issue as to who should succeed the current Chief Justice, who will retire in August.

The government delegated to that committee the task of deciding how ...