The School is delighted to announce that  Mr Justice John Edwards, a Court of Appeal judge and an Adjunct Professor in the School, has recently been appointed President of the Association of Judges of Ireland (AJI), a representative organisation for judges, which is primarily concerned with their conditions of work and service. Though it is not a judicial council and does not purport to be such, the AJI has a educative role in terms of what the judiciary do, and in terms of building public trust in the judiciary, and it is to be a priority of Mr Justice Edward’s presidency to develop some public outreach initiatives. This will be a difficult path to negotiate in circumstances where it will not be possible to discuss individual cases or indeed comment on any matter of actual or potential public controversy. However, it will be possible to talk about the judiciary’s role as the third arm of government, about its role generally in the administration of justice and about what the day to day job of being a judge involves, and hopefully present the human face of the judiciary. The AJI also sees itself as requiring to be vigilant in defence of judicial independence, which happily has never yet  been seriously threatened in this country (notwithstanding some legitimate concerns some years ago that that might come to pass). Unfortunately the same is not true elsewhere in the world, even in Europe. Judicial independence is at the present time seriously under threat in Poland, Bulgaria and of course Turkey. The AJI is affiliated to, and plays a very active role, in the European Association of Judges and in the International Association of Judges, both of which are very active in defence and support of judiciaries whose independence is threatened.  Mr Justice Edwards is the AJI's representative for the time being on both bodies, and have been since 2012. He has been a member of the eleven member executive, and has been the Secretary, of the AJI since its foundation in 2011, and on the 17th of November 2017 was elected as its 3rd President, for a two year term succeeding  Mr Justice George Birmingham and Mr Justice Peter Kelly, respectively, in that role.