Three candidates have been put forward for election as Ireland’s next judge of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

Two are judges and one is a professor of law.

The nominees are:

• Judge Fergal Gaynor, an international judge at Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague,
• Court of Appeal judge Ms Justice Úna Ní Raifeartaigh, and
• Prof Colm Ó Cinnéde (Professor of Constitutional and Human Rights Law at University College London).

One of the three will be elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe as Ireland’s judge on the Strasbourg-based court, to replace Ms Justice Síofra O’Leary.

O’Leary (pictured) became president of the ECtHR in 2019, following her election as judge in 2015.

A total of 17 applications for the ECtHR judgeship were examined by a panel chaired by Attorney General Rossa Fanning.

Other panel members were:

• Former Chief Justice Frank Clarke,
• Dr Suzanne Egan (Associate Professor at the Sutherland School of Law, UCD).

Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh was appointed a judge of the High Court in 2016 and went to the Court of Appeal in 2019.

UCC law graduate Professor Ó Cinnéide graduated as a BL from the King’s Inns in 1997.

Social rights

He has been a member of the European Committee of Social Rights of the Council of Europe for ten years, and specialises in European and international human-rights law, comparative constitutional law, EU law, and anti-discrimination law.

Trinity graduate Judge Gaynor holds a BL from the King’s Inns and a Cambridge Master’s degree in International Relations. He was appointed in 2020 at Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague and has served as a full-time judge since May 2021.