Evidence submitted by the Judicial Appointments
Commission
JUDICIAL QUALITIES
1. Appropriate Intellectual Capacity [Outstanding
Intellectual Capacity—For High Court]
— High level of expertise in your chosen
area or profession.
— Ability to absorb and analyse information.
— Knowledge of the law and its underlying
principles, or the ability to acquire this knowledge where necessary.
2. Personal qualities
— Integrity and independence of mind.
3. An Ability to Understand and Deal Fairly
— The ability to treat everyone with respect and sensitivity whatever their background.
— Willingness to listen with patience and courtesy.
4. Authority and Communication Skills
— The ability to explain orally or
in writing the procedure and any decisions reached clearly and
succinctly to all those involved.
— The ability to inspire respect and confidence.
5. Efficiency
— The ability to work at speed and under pressure.
— The ability to organise time effectively and produce reasoned judgements expeditiously.
— The ability to work constructively with others (including leadership and managerial skills where appropriate).
KEY PARTNERS
Lord Phillips—Lord Chief Justice
Lord Falconer—Lord Chancellor
Lord Justice Leveson—Deputy Senior Presiding Judge
Lord Justice Carnwath—Senior President Designate of Tribunals
KEY INTERESTED
PARTIES
Umair Abiden—Society of Black Lawyers
Mr Richard Barraclough—Chairman, Bar Disability
Committee
Sid Brighton—Chief Executive, Justices'
Clerks Society
His Honour Judge Keith Cutler—Honorary
Secretary, Council of her Majesty's Circuit Judges
Sir Terence Etherton—Chairman, The Law
Commission
Ms Barbara Flaxman—Secretary, The Judges
Council
Her Honour Judge Estella Hindley QC—Secretary,
UK Association of Women Judges
Mr Stephen Hockman QC—Chairman, The Bar
Council
Jane Hoyal—Chair, Association of Women
Barristers
Miss Zainab Kemsley—Black Solicitors Network
Saliesh Mehta—Chairman, Society of Asian
Lawyers
Azmat Nisa—Association of Muslim Lawyers
Boma Ozbia—Association of Women Solicitors
District Judge Michael J Walker—Secretary,
Association of District Judges
Sir John Wall—Leader, Society of Visually
Impaired Lawyers
Vanessa Williams—Women Lawyer Forum
Fiona Woolf—President, The Law Society
Senior District Judge Workman—Senior District
Judge, Chief Magistrates' Office
Stuart Wright—Bar Lesbian and Gay Group
DEVELOPING BASELINE
DATA ON
DIVERSITY IN
JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS
1. On 18 July 2006, the Constitutional Affairs
Select Committee received oral evidence, for the first time, from
members of the newly created Judicial Appointments Commission.
The Select Committee requested a written response from the JAC,
and a "considered view" on the issue of the use of benchmarking
in encouraging diversity in judicial appointments.
2. The terms "benchmarking" and
"baseline data" were used as synonyms in the discussion
with the Select Committee. The JAC understands "benchmarking"
to describe a management tool for evaluating various aspects of
best practice, usually within the organisation's own sector. As
a newly created body, the JAC will initially focus on identifying
gaps in baseline data and on monitoring diversity performance.
As the organisation develops, consideration will be given to whether
developing benchmarking strategies will directly contribute to
the JAC's core objectives. However, the immediate challenge is
to develop baseline data against which the Commissioners can measure
whether the strategy to widen the range of applicants is succeeding.
The rest of this paper concentrates on this aspect of measurement.
THE JAC'S
JUDICIAL DIVERSITY
STRATEGY
3. The JAC will carry out its statutory
responsibilities for diversity within the framework agreed with
the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice. The strategy demonstrates
our commitment to ensuring a judiciary of the highest calibre,
with candidates drawn from the widest possible range of available
talent.
4. The strategy outlines specific responsibilities
for the JAC; these are:
— To encourage a wider range of applicants,
so as to ensure the widest possible choice of candidates for selection.
— To promote diversity through fair
and open processes for selection to judicial office solely on
merit.
5. To this end, the agreed measures of success
for the JAC are:
— Annual increases in the diversity
of applicants for judicial office, in respect of disability, ethnic
origin, gender and professional background, so that the diversity
of applicants becomes reflective of the eligible pool.
— To keep selection processes under
regular review to ensure that they offer fair and equal opportunity
to candidates for judicial office at all levels, in respect of
disability, ethnic origin, gender and professional background.
DATA COLLECTION
6. The JAC's objective is to collect and
publish information on applicants at all levels in respect of
gender, ethnic origin, disability status and professional background
for the key stages of the process; and to provide a comparison
with the eligible pool. The JAC has established which key data
sets exist and has identified the additional information that
it will need to collect through the revised monitoring form that
will be a detachable part of the revised application form for
all selection exercises. This undertaking has highlighted some
issues with the completeness and consistency of existing data:
— In general, data on ethnicity and
gender is much stronger than the data on disability status. This
is partly because the tradition of equality monitoring in relation
to race and gender has a longer history in the public sector,
whereas disability status monitoring is less well established.
The JAC is considering how to encourage more people to report
their disability status.
— To date, legal applicants have been
identified as a barrister or solicitor but there has been no further
breakdown of professional background as will now be required by
the JAC. Comprehensive data on professional background will therefore
be limited for some time.
— Establishing the eligible pool comparison
is complex. The Bar Council and Law Society provide annual diversity
statistics for the legal profession but the variable eligibility
and experience criteria for different levels of appointment may
affect the composition of the eligible pool for any one post.
— For non-legal tribunal appointments,
there is no equivalent external database on the diversity make-up
of the eligible pool, although there are comparators within the
general population pool.
7. The JAC's considered view is that we
are in the early stages of a challenging process to establish
and gather the data that will form the baseline against which
its progress can be measured. Our initial focus is on resolving
the issues identified in this paper.
8. The challenges are being met through
joint working with the Department and the Directorate of Judicial
Offices. For the Department, similar issues arise in measuring
their objective to widen the range of those eligible to apply.
The responsibility for establishing a diversity baseline for existing
judicial office holders lies with the Lord Chief Justice.
Judicial Appointments Commission
September and October 2006
LETTER FROM
BARONESS PRASHAR,
CHAIRMAN OF
THE JUDICIAL
APPOINTMENTS COMMISSION,
TO THE
RT HON
LORD FALCONER
OF THOROTON,
SECRETARY OF
STATE FOR
CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS
AND LORD
CHANCELLOR
I am writing to share with you the new processes
that the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) has agreed for
the future selection of candidates for judicial appointments.
We will introduce these new processes as from
November onwards. However, I wanted to share these with you and
other key interested parties (list attached) at an early stage
before making them more widely known.
As a new organisation, the JAC decided that,
in its first six months, it should thoroughly review current ways
of selecting candidates for judicial appointment. These new processes
are a result of our thorough discussions of assessment methods
available for identifying suitable candidates. We have considered
research and we have listened to views expressed by all key interested
parties. In all our deliberations we have been guided by three
key principles—fairness, transparency and deliverability.
The attached aide memoire sets out the new processes
by category of appointment. Below I give some examples of how
we have attempted to make the new regime more fair, more transparent
and deliverable.
We have attempted to achieve fairness and transparency
by introducing for all but the most senior appointments a written
qualifying test as a means of selecting candidates for interview.
This will replace the paper sifts which have previously been used
for many competitions. Paper sifts in selection for judicial appointments
have been criticised by applicants and referees alike as being
heavily reliant on subjective assessments. In addition, when more
than one selection panel has been used to conduct a sift, there
have been concerns about consistency between the panels.
Under the new regime all candidates (other than
those applying for the senior appointments) who demonstrate excellence
in a suitable qualifying test will be interviewed and those who
do not will not proceed to the next stage.
The new process will also be fairer as it will
provide greater consistency than previously between candidates
for different judicial offices. Applicants for a fee-paid office
will take a qualifying test and, if successful participate in
an interview and role play(s). Applicants for salaried judicial
appointments in pay groups 6 + 7 will also take a qualifying test
and, if successful, be invited for interview.
We are also introducing greater transparency
in appointments to the High Court. In future these will be advertised
and shortlisted candidates will be invited to have a structured
discussion with a selection panel in order to assess their suitability.
As far as delivering results on time is concerned
we are confident that our part of the appointment process—that
is from the day we receive a vacancy request to the day we recommend
a suitable candidate(s)—will run more quickly than previously.
Moreover, we will listen to the comments which we receive from
key interested parties and make improvements as we go along.
Our objective has been to introduce a more open,
effective and rigorous approach to the selection of judicial office
holders at all levels.
We will keep the effectiveness of these processes
under review and introduce further changes if necessary.
Baroness Prashar CBE
Chair
Judicial Appointments Commission
28 September 2006
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