Magistrates are at the forefront of delivering justice in local communities across the country.
To assist him in his work, the Lord Chancellor has a team of officials within the Department who gather information about candidates and interview them. It is important that judges are appointed wholly on merit and through a system which is fair and in which the public has confidence. Once appointed, the independence of the judiciary is paramount.
Objective
To uphold the independence of the judiciary - especially through the appointment of sufficient judges, magistrates and other judicial post holders of the right calibre to match needs, and through promoting a partnership with the judiciary for delivering justice effectively (SO6).
In December 1999, Sir Leonard Peach made a number of recommendations in his report on the judicial appointments process. We continue to take forward the changes that he proposed (SDA34). We have already created the Commission for Judicial Appointments and we are piloting an assessment centre for the appointment competition for Deputy District Judges.
Links
An Independent Scrutiny of the Appointment Processes of Judges and Queen's Counsel in England and Wales by Sir Leonard Peach.
The newly-established Commission for Judicial Appointments provides, for the first time, an independent mechanism for applicants for judicial office who feel that their candidacy has not been considered fairly.
In March 2001, Professor Sir Colin Campbell, Vice-Chancellor of Nottingham University, was appointed First Commissioner for Judicial Appointments. Seven Deputy Commissioners were appointed in December 2001 to support Sir Colin in his role. One of the Deputy Commissioners is also Commissioner for Judicial Appointments for Northern Ireland.
The Commission's role is to conduct an ongoing audit of the procedures for the appointment of judges and Queen's Counsel (QCs - also known as Silks). It handles comments or complaints from individuals and organisations about the way the procedures are applied and recommends improvements to the Lord Chancellor. The First Commissioner will produce an Annual Report alongside the Lord Chancellor's Annual Report on Judicial Appointments to be published in October 2002.
When we receive a clearer picture of the nature of the complaints and the First Commissioner's recommendations, we will develop appropriate targets for the appointments process (SDA37).
It is vital that the judicial appointments process identifies the most talented people for appointment as judges, irrespective of their professional or social background. We want a judiciary which reflects the diversity of the legal profession, which in turn should mirror society. We therefore encourage applications from under-represented groups such as women, members of ethnic minority communities and disabled people (SDA35).
Officials from the Department have attended events during the year for lawyers in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff and Chester to encourage applications from those who might be reluctant to apply. Rosie Winterton MP, Parliamentary Secretary in the Department, delivered a speech at the Association of Women Barristers' Dinner in November 2001 and we are planning events for 2002-03 in London and Birmingham specifically aimed at ethnic minority lawyers. We will attend seminars during the year to attract women into lay judicial appointments.
We have produced a video about the application process with members of the profession and the judiciary. The aim of the video is to encourage the widest possible group of qualified people to apply for part-time judicial appointment. The video provides clear information to those interested in applying and explains our current selection procedure. We aim to show a selection process genuinely dedicated to appointing the best possible talent to the judiciary.
We have run a work shadowing scheme since March 1999. The feedback we receive and the numbers of people taking part show that it continues to be very successful. The scheme allows lawyers to find out what it is like to sit judicially, with either a District Judge or Circuit Judge, before deciding whether to apply. Last year 85 lawyers applied to the scheme. So far, in 2001-02, we have received 76 applications.
We are looking to recruit more women to the judiciary. To measure our progress, we have projected the numbers of potential appointments of women based on the pool of people within the legal profession who are available for appointment (SDA36). These projections are based partly on information from the Bar Council and Law Society. They show that in the Deputy District Judge competition in 2005, 38 per cent of appointments may be women; in 2010 the figure may rise to 42 per cent. The picture is similar for the District Judge competitions: in 2005 and 2010 the figures are estimated at 38 per cent and 45 per cent respectively. The figures for Recordership and the Circuit Bench are lower - women may account for 20 per cent of appointments for both competitions in 2005, and 24 per cent and 25 per cent respectively in 2010.
Table 1 shows the percentages of applicants and appointees who were women or members of ethnic minorities in 1999-2000 and 2000-01.
| 1999-2000 | 2000-2001 | |
|---|---|---|
| Women: applications | 24.2% | 25.6% |
| appointments | 26.9% | 28.4% |
| Ethnic minorities: applications | 5.9% | 7.1% |
| appointments | 4.2% | 6.9% |
Assessment centres can offer candidates a better opportunity to demonstrate their suitability for appointment than in an interview alone. We will pilot a one-day assessment centre in the competition for the appointment of Deputy District Judges and Deputy District Judges (magistrates' courts) in 2002. This will replace the existing interview part of the selection process.
Assessment centres involve people taking part in a range of tests. We will make sure that the tests are relevant. We will also make sure that our assessment methods support the principle of equal opportunity and diversity and that the activities do not unfairly discriminate against or disadvantage any applicant.
All the assessment activities will be tailor-made for judicial appointments by experts working with the judiciary and officials in our department. We have been analysing the skills and qualities required in a Deputy District Judge to develop the tests. Once the 2002 competition is over, we will evaluate the results before considering whether we can extend the assessment centre approach to other judicial appointments.
For the judicial system to operate effectively, we must appoint enough suitably-qualified people.
Target
To appoint or recommend for appointment sufficient numbers of judges and tribunal members to deliver Court Service plans and meet requests from other departments, and ensure that 95 per cent of the target number of lay magistrates are in post by 2003 (SDA38).
The Judicial Appointments Annual Report 2000-01 provides information about applications, interviews and appointments from the competitions that year. Our Department's Judicial Group responds to Court Service and other government departments' anticipated needs for judicial office holders. We are improving our collection of information about vacancies and appointments to measure our progress against this target.
We are meeting the demand for judiciary to sit in most courts and tribunals. However, we forecast a shortfall during 2001-02 in the appointment of medical members of The Appeals Service and the Mental Health Review Tribunals. We have taken measures, in conjunction with the Department of Health to improve the recruitment of doctors. These include extended contract arrangements and ad hoc recruitment panels. We are advertising vacancies more widely and are working with the Department of Health to target Commonwealth countries for suitably-qualified applicants. Finally, we have raised the retirement age for these tribunal members to 70.
Last year, we filled only 82 per cent of magistrates' posts that Advisory Committees were seeking to fill, against our target of 95 per cent. Local Magistrates' Courts Advisory Committees reporting to the Lord Chancellor decide how many magistrates are needed. We must do more to help the Committees to determine both the ideal number of magistrates for a particular bench and, within that, the target number to appoint in any one year. In many cases, the figures reported to us were unrealistic. We will continue our work into 2002-03 to ensure that Committees become better at fixing realistic targets.