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We should avoid politicising our Supreme Court – Dr Ronan McCrea in The Irish Times

16 October 2015

“The courts are the branch of government with the weakest democratic credentials.”

In this article in The Irish TimesDr Ronan McCrea warns against the dangers of politicisation of constitutional courts.

Recent constitutional changes allow judges of the Irish Supreme Court to issue individual opinions in challenges to the constitutionality of acts of the legislature. In the article, Dr McCrea highlights the example of the US Supreme Court where individual judges have achieved public fame and where politicised appointments and opinions questioning the legitimacy of the majority judgment have become common, and contrasts this with examples such as the French Constitutional Council and the European Court of Justice, where only one judgment is issued and where judges have retained a much lower public profile.

Read: ‘We should avoid politicising our Supreme Court’ The Irish Times