John Murray, Irish Attorney General who took on Mrs Thatcher over the extradition of a Catholic priest – obituary

The Hon Mr Justice John Murray, who has died aged 79, was successively Attorney General and Chief Justice in the Republic of Ireland as well as serving a term in between as judge of the European Court of Justice.

He incurred the wrath of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1988 when, as Attorney General in the government of Charles Haughey, he declined to permit the extradition to Britain of the Catholic priest Patrick Ryan, who was suspected of planning the importation of arms for the IRA. The reason given was that Father Ryan could not be assured of a fair trial when Thatcher had described him in the House of Commons as a terrorist, thereby orchestrating a campaign of vilification in the British press.

Thatcher described Murray’s decision as “an insult to the English people”. Although based on the right to a fair trial guaranteed under the Irish constitution, it was seen by her and her law officers as politically motivated, going, as it did, beyond the competence of the Attorney General under the recently enacted Irish legislation to halt extradition where there was not a prima facie case against a suspect.

The episode was part of a legal career heavily intertwined with politics. The politics were inherited. John Loyola Murray was born in Limerick on June 27 1943 into a middle-class family who were active supporters of the more hardline nationalist Fianna Fáil party. As a law student at University College Dublin he showed political flair, getting himself elected to the student council on the catchy slogan “Hurry, hurry, vote for Murray.” He became president of the Union of Students in Ireland.

Called to the Bar in 1967, he had a spectacular success in 1970 when he appeared for the dismissed Fianna Fail government minister Neil Blaney, who was charged with conspiracy to import arms to be used in Northern Ireland, where the Troubles had broken out. The judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence to send Blaney forward for trial. Others involved, including the dismissed finance minister Charles Haughey, were sent forward but acquitted; in the absence of Blaney, who had a central role in the operation, the facts that emerged were too confused to secure convictions.

Murray, who had stood for Fianna Fáil at a local election, was on the team briefed by the Irish government in 1972 to sue the UK under the European Convention of Human Rights, alleging torture of detainees in Northern Ireland. His role in this bad-tempered litigation, which culminated over five years later in a finding of inhuman treatment (but not torture), consolidated his position among barristers supporting Fianna Fáil Independently of politics, the early-rising, hard-working and astute Murray established a thriving practice in personal injury cases. He was called to the Inner Bar in 1981.

The following year he was promoted over the heads of more senior Fianna Fáil barristers to become Attorney General in Charles Haughey’s short-lived second government. He was responsible for drafting a constitutional amendment, adopted the following year by referendum, outlawing abortion. Its equation of the right to life of the unborn child with that of the mother was problematic and eventually opened the way for a campaign for its repeal, which was finally achieved in 2018.

Murray resumed as Attorney General when Haughey returned to power after the 1987 general election. Even before the Father Ryan episode, the British Government was irked that the commitment to extradition given by the previous Irish government, led by Garret Fitzgerald, was watered down to give the Attorney General an effective veto where he considered there was not a prima facie case against a suspect.

In October 1991, months before Haughey was ousted as Taoiseach, he appointed Murray to be the Irish judge on the European Court of Justice. Murray was on the court when it ruled that discrimination in favour of women could not be justified on the ground that it achieved gender balance.

In 1999, following the forced resignation of the judge earmarked by Fianna Fáil in government to succeed as Chief Justice, Murray resigned his European judgeship and was appointed to the Irish Supreme Court. But expectations that he would succeed as Chief Justice were not fulfilled as the minority party in the government insisted that a longer-standing judge on the Supreme Court be appointed. They agreed to Murray’s appointment when that judge retired in 2004.

As Chief Justice, Murray upset traditionalists by purging the courts of anglicised features that had survived Irish independence. He had the rules of court amended so that the practice of addressing judges as “my Lord” was replaced by the simple appellation “judge”. He also brought in new uniforms for judges akin to those worn in continental Europe; barristers were no longer required to wear wigs in court.

Although his judgments were well-reasoned and generally sound, Murray’s exacting manner presiding in court, as well as resentment about the role of political patronage in his career, detracted somewhat from his popularity within the profession.

As head of the judiciary, he had to cope with public opprobrium when, after the economic crash in 2008, judges invoked the principle of judicial independence in the constitution to resist the imposition by government of pay cuts suffered by other public servants. Murray’s efforts to head off a constitutional amendment allowing government to do this were frustrated by the refusal of some judges to agree to make equivalent voluntary payments to the Revenue, and the tardiness of many others in doing so.

Murray was the first Chief Justice whose tenure was limited to seven years by legislation enacted in the 1990s He handed over to his successor in 2011 but continued to play a valuable role as an ordinary judge of the Supreme Court until he reached the retirement age in 2015.

He was Chancellor of the University of Limerick in his beloved native city, a fitting appointment, not least because of the interest he had taken in students at King’s Inns when he was Chief Justice. He had a fine sense of public service.

Outside work, Murray was a keen sailor, a regular sea swimmer, an avid fan of Munster rugby and a devoted family man.

He married Gabrielle Walsh, daughter of Mr Justice Brian Walsh, a pioneering judge of the Supreme Court, in 1969. She survives him with their daughter and son.

John Murray, born June 27 1943, died January 18 2023