Current Judges of the Supreme Court

 

 

The Hon. Mr. Justice John Mac Menamin 

The Hon. Ms. Justice Elizabeth Dunne

The Hon. Mr. Justice Peter Charleton

The Hon. Ms. Justice Iseult O’Malley

 The Hon. Ms. Justice Marie Baker

 The Hon. Mr. Justice Seamus Woulfe

 The Hon. Mr. Justice Gerard Hogan

The President of the Court of Appeal, The Hon. Mr. Justice George Birmingham

The President of the High Court, The Hon. Ms. Justice Mary Irvine



 

 


  Mr. Justice MacMenamin 2019 

 

Mr. Justice John Mac Menamin

Mr. Justice John MacMenamin was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court in 2012.

He was born in Dublin and educated at Terenure College, University College Dublin (B.A. History) and The Honorable Society of King's Inns (B.L.).  As a student he was a Council member of the Free Legal Advice Centre and was involved in running a Free Legal Advice Centre in Ballyfermot.

Mr. Justice MacMenamin was called to the Bar of Ireland in 1975. He was appointed a Senior Counsel in 1991 and engaged first in general practice before specialising in judicial review, administrative law and defamation proceedings. He acted for a number clients before the Flood/Mahon Tribunal of Inquiry and for the Department of Health and for members of the then Cabinet, including the Taoiseach before the Ryan Tribunal.

He was legal assessor to the Fitness to Practice Committee of the Medical Council for ten years. Having served for four terms as an ordinary member, he was elected Chairman of the Bar Council from 1997 to 1999. He was a director of the V.H.I. from 1995 to 1997.

Mr. Justice MacMenamin was appointed a judge of the High Court in 2004. There he has dealt primarily with judicial review proceedings; cases with a constitutional or human rights demension; the rights of aslyum seekers; children in need of special care; treatment of prisoners; and single parents. He was in charge of the High Court Minors list for three years. He was appointed a member of the Special Criminal Court in 2009.

Mr. Justice Macmenamin was also, for three years, Ireland’s representative on the C.C.J.E., the Consultative Council of European Judges, an advisory committee to the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

Mr. Justice MacMenamin has written and lectured on a range of legal subjects. He delivered the 2014 National University of Ireland Garrett Fitzgerald Lecture on the future of the European Union. He has lectured in St. Louis University School of Law and led a course of lectures on comparative constitutionalism at N.A.L.S.A.T., the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research at Hyderabad, India. He is an Adjunct Professor at Maynooth University and was appointed a Judge in Residence at Dublin City University in 2019.  In 1998, he was elected a Bencher of the Honorable Society of King's Inns. 


 

M.s. Justice Dunne 2019

Ms. Justice Elizabeth Dunne

Ms. Justice Dunne was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court in 2013.

Ms. Justice Dunne was born in Roscommon and educated at University College Dublin (B.C.L.) and The Honorable Society of King's Inns (B.L.).

She was called to The Bar of Ireland in 1977. During her practice, Ms. Justice Dunne was elected to the Bar Council.

Ms. Justice Dunne was appointed a judge of the Circuit Court in 1996 and was appointed to the High Court in 2004. She served as a member of the Education Committee of The Honorable Society of King's Inns and subsequenly served as Chair of that Committee for a number of years.

In 2004, Ms. Justice Dunne became a Bencher of King's Inns.

In 2013, Ms. Justice Dunne was appointed as Chair of the Referendum Commission that was established in advance of the Referendums to establish the Court of Appeal and to abolish Seanad Éireann.

Ms. Justuce Dunne is the correspondent judge for the Supreme Court of Ireland on ACA-Europe, an assocation comprised of the Councils of State of Supreme Adminsitrative jurisdictions of each member state of the European Union and the Court of Justice of the European Union. 


 

Charleton J 2019

 

    

Mr. Justice Peter Charleton

Mr. Justice Charleton was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court in 2014.

He was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College Dublin and The Honorable Society of King's Inns. He lectured in Trinity College Dublin from 1986 to 1988 in criminal law and in The Honorable Society of King's Inns in tort law from 1982 to 1984.

Mr. Justice Charleton was called to The Bar of Ireland in 1979. In 1995, he was called to the Inner Bar. From 2002 to his appointment to the High Court in 2006 he was counsel to the Morris Tribunal; a statutory enquiry which looked into miscwas onduct in the Garda Síochána.  In the High Court he was assigned principally to the commercial list.

From February 2017 to June 2018 he was Chairman of the Tribunal of Inquiry into protected disclosures made under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 and certain other matters. The tribunal published two substantive reports on the issues before it, the last in October 2018.

He has published on intelellectual property, criminal law, torts, constitutional law and executive power in journals, inlcuding the Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, the International Journal of Law and the Family, the Yearbook of the International Commission of Jurists, Intellectual Property Law and Policy, the Journal of Criminal Law, the Bar Review, the Journal of the Judicial Studies Institute of Ireland, the Irish Law Times, the Gazette of the Incoporated Law Society of Ireland and the Irish Criminal Law Journal.

Mr. Justice Charleton is the author of: Controlled Drugs and the Criminal Law (An Cló Liúir, 1986); Offences Against the Person (Round Hall Press, 1992); Charleton and McDermott's Criminal Law and Evidence Peter Charleton, Paul Anthony McDermott, Ciara Herlihy, Stephen Byrne, Bloomsbury, 2020); Irish Criminal Law (1999, Butterworths, with McDermott and Bolger); and Lies in a Miror: An Essay on Evil and Deceit (Blackhall Publishing, 2006).  

Mr. Justice Charleton is the Irish representative on the Colloque Franco Brittanique Irlandais.

He was a founder member of the RTÉ Philharmonic Choir and was chairman of the National Archives Advisory Council from 2011 to 2016.

 

 


 

    

Ms. Justice Iseult O’Malley

Ms. Justice O’Malley was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court in 2015.

Ms. Justice O'Malley was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College Dublin and The Honorable Society of King's Inns.

She was called to The Bar of Ireland in 1987. In 2017, she was appointed a Senior Counsel.  She practised at the Bar for twenty-five years, mainly in criminal law and also in judicial review, extradition, immigration and housing law.

She was a Director of the Free Legal Advice Centre (F.L.A.C.) from 1985 to 2012 and was Chairperson of the organisation for three years.

In 2012, Ms. Justice O'Malley was appointed a judge of the High Court.

She is a former Chairperson of the Refugee Agency and was a member of the Employment Appeals Tribunal and the Hepatitis C Compensation Tribunal from 1995 to 1999.

In 2014, she received an E.S.B. Rehab Person of the Year Award for her work with F.L.A.C.

In 2012, Ms. Justice O'Malley became a Bencher of The Honorable Society of King's Inns.

 

 


 

Baker J

 

The Hon. Ms. Justice Marie Baker

Ms. Justice Baker was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court in 2019.

She was born in Co. Wicklow but lived for most of her childhood in County Cork and was educated in St. Mary's High School, Midleton, Co. Cork, University College Cork (M.A, Philosophy and B.C.L.) and the Honorable Society of King's Inns (B.L.).

Ms. Justice Baker was called to the Bar in 1984 and was called to the Inner Bar in 2004. She practiced in the Cork and Munster circuits. Her primary practice areas included land law and conveyancing, general chancery, family law and commercial law.

She is an accredited mediator.

Ms. Justice baker has previously lectured on contract and commercial law in Dublin City University (formerly known as the National Institute of Further Education).

In 2014, she was appointed as a part-time Commissioner of the Law Reform Commission. She was a member of the advisory study group on pre-nuptial agreements which reported to Governemnt in April 2007.

In 2014. she was appointed a judge of the High Court and was assigned to the non-jury and judicial review lists. She was the judge in charge of the personal insolvency list and the non-contentius probate list from 2014 until her appointment to the Court of Appeal.

Upon its coming into effect in May 2018, Ms. Justice Baker was appointed as the assigned judge for the purposes of the applicabaility of the Data Protection Act 2018 in respect of the supervision of data processing operations of the courts when acting in their judicial capacity.

 

 

Woulfe J

 

The Hon. Mr. Justice Séamus Woulfe

Mr. Justice Woulfe was educated at Belvedere College SJ, Trinity College Dublin (BA) (Mod) (Legal Science), Dalhousie University (LL.M), Nova Scotia, and The Honorable Society of King’s Inns (Barrister-at-Law). He was called to the Bar in 1987 and was called to the Inner Bar in 2005. As a Barrister, he acted as Legal Assessor to the Fitness to Practice Committees of Irish Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland. In 2017, he was appointed as Attorney General and served in that role until June 2020. In July 2020, Mr. Justice Woulfe was appointed to the Supreme Court.

 

 

 

The Hon. Mr. Justice Gerard Hogan

Mr. Justice Hogan was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court in 2021. He is a graduate of University College Dublin (LL.M., 198, LL.D., 1997), the University of Pennsylvania (L.L.M., 1982), the Honorable Society of King's Inns (1984) and Trinity College Dublin (Ph.D. 2011). He was a law lecturer at Trinity College Dublin from 1982 to 2007. He was a Junior Counsel at The Bar of Ireland from 1987 to 1997 and was called to the Inner Bar in 1997.  He was appointed a judge of the High Court in 2010 and a judge of the Court of Appeal in 2014.  He was Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union from 8th October 2018 until 7th October 2021.