Chapter 3: Recruitment
59.In the previous chapter we addressed issues affecting the current members of the judiciary. While these factors are deterring potential applicants, there are additional challenges affecting the recruitment of new judges. As the Lord Chief Justice’s 2017 report noted “Significant difficulties remain in recruitment to the judiciary, in particular to the senior levels.”100 In this chapter, we focus on specific problems affecting recruitment and appointment to the bench.
60.Lord Kakkar, chairman of the Judicial Appointments Commission, explained the difficulties in filling judicial posts being experienced by the JAC. He said that there was “a worrying trend in our inability to fill certain important vacancies”101 and that the number of unfilled vacancies was likely to rise as the JAC had to fill a significant number of judicial posts during 2017 and 2018—equating to around 20 to 25 per cent of the total number of district, circuit and high court judges. He warned that “if one looks at the trend in the two previous years, there could be a serious shortfall in our ability to nominate candidates to fill those positions.”102 The then Lord Chancellor acknowledged that “not having enough people coming forward to be judges” was “one of the biggest threats” to the judiciary.”103
61.Lord Kakkar told us that “in the 2015 High Court exercise we were unable to fill one vacancy. In the 2016 exercise, we were unable to fill six vacancies. At the moment, we are in the process of running a competition to fill 25 High Court positions.”104 The SSRB noted in its 2017 annual report that “this year, there has been an unprecedented number of unfilled vacancies in the High Court … Currently, a further exercise is being run to appoint 25 judges. This has been accompanied by a significant increase in the number of early retirements in the High Court.”105 The SSRB continued that “for the High Court, the evidence now shows a definite problem with recruitment and with early retirement” and “this was sufficiently serious that the SSRB was considering making a recommendation outside the 1 per cent pay norm.”106 However, before they reported, the Ministry of Justice notified the SSRB “of the government’s own decision to put in place a new allowance worth 11 per cent of pay for some judges in the High Court in England and Wales.”107
62.Since our evidence session with the JAC in March 2017, appointments for only 13 of the 25 vacancies for the High Court have been announced.108 It is expected that further appointments will be announced in the coming months.109
63.We also heard from the JAC about recruitment at circuit judge level, which is the “workhorse … of the courts judiciary system.”110 Lord Justice Burnett said:
“the JAC ran into problems in recruiting circuit judges last year. The request was for 55 circuit judges, and, from memory, only 44 were selected for appointment. Another circuit judge competition is going to open within the next month or so. The final numbers being sought have not been identified, but it is going to be very many more than the 55 we were seeking last year.”111
64.Since our evidence session with the JAC, there was a recruitment competition to fill 116.5 circuit judge112 and 83.5 district judge113 vacancies across England and Wales. The outcomes of both competitions will be announced in the coming months.114
65.At recorder level, the latest figures showed a significant and welcome increase in applications since 2015.115 Indeed it appears to have led to the JAC application system experiencing a technical failure during the recent process which affected almost 2,500 candidates.116
66.Lord Kakkar told us “one thing we are very clear about is that we will not drop the quality bar that is set for appointment to the judiciary. If we do not have quality candidates available to us, we will not be able to make the nominations and those positions will go unfilled.”117 Lord Thomas concurred:
“Lord Kakkar has been to visit virtually every level of the judiciary, and when he said, “I’m not compromising on quality”, there was universal approval and universal relief, because once you compromise on it it is a downward trajectory. It would be fatal to the High Court Bench if we were to do that, but fatal also to the District Bench and to the tribunals and the Circuit Bench. We simply cannot.”118
67.We are seriously concerned about recruitment to the bench. However we also agree unequivocally with the Judicial Appointments Commission that the threshold for appointment should not be lowered in order to fill judicial vacancies. It is essential that the high quality of the judiciary, and by extension the legal system in the UK, is not compromised.
Encouraging a wider range of candidates to apply
68.Traditionally, appointments to the judiciary generally tended to come from the Bar and, as a result, the pool of potential candidates tended to be narrow. As such, there is a large underrepresentation in judicial posts from solicitors, government lawyers, chartered legal executives and academics. In our 2012 report we concluded that “the JAC, the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice must encourage applications from lawyers other than barristers. There should be no sense that not having been a member of the Bar makes an individual unworthy of appointment or less meritorious.”119
69.In its response, the Government said:
“the Ministry of Justice is committed to supporting the cultural change required among legal professionals, and to ensuring that no unreasonable restrictions are placed upon potential candidates for judicial office. Working together with the members of the Judicial Diversity Taskforce, the Ministry of Justice will consider initiatives that would support the resolution of these concerns.”120
70.In the following sections we consider further the means to encourage a greater number of applications from more diverse sections of legal practice.
Solicitors
71.Lord Kakkar told us that the JAC “see the numbers of solicitor applications as important, because this reflects the fact that our pool of those with a legal professional background is becoming more diverse.”121 However, despite the assurances from the Government in 2012 to consider supportive initiatives for solicitors and to ensure there were no unreasonable restrictions placed on them, we heard that in the intervening five years “the number of applications from solicitors has remained broadly static.”122 Liz Truss MP said that “although there has been a long standing attempt to get more solicitors to apply for judicial positions, we have not been successful with them getting through the process.”123
72.We heard that the culture of the legal profession as a whole, and of law firms in particular, may deter solicitors from applying for judicial office. It was suggested that the low success rate was dissuading solicitors from applying for the judiciary—we consider this issue later in the chapter.
73.We heard that the Bar remained the traditional route into the judiciary in the eyes of much of the legal profession. As Lord Neuberger told us “there is still an in-built assumption that it will tend to be a barrister, not a solicitor, who becomes a High Court judge, but that is changing … people on the whole do not think of solicitors—and solicitors do not think of themselves—as becoming High Court judges.”124 Anna Nice, a solicitor who gave evidence in a personal capacity, explained:
“That whole ethos at the Bar—that applying for a deputy district judge or a recorder post is something you should think about doing—is in many chambers, and supportive chambers particularly, completely the norm. That is not the same for solicitors. That acceptance that it is an appropriate thing to do, that you will need time to do it, that there are people around who will talk to you about the process and encourage you is all just very natural in sets of chambers, probably from the beginning.”125
74.She told us about her experience in applying for a circuit judge role and the lack of encouragement she received from her solicitor counterparts, and said that “it was members of the Bar who encouraged me to apply in the end. I had no encouragement from solicitors whatsoever; it was two barristers that I instructed.”126
75.In our 2012 report we concluded:
“we are not convinced that either the Law Society or the partners of most of the large firms are sufficiently committed to the encouragement of solicitors applying to become judges. The promotion of judicial diversity will be greatly enhanced if solicitors are able to take time off to hold part-time fee-paid judicial posts whilst continuing to practise. We consider it essential in the public interest that this change be made. This will require a significant cultural change within firms and the solicitors’ profession as a whole.”127
76.In its response the Government said that “a degree of cultural change within the solicitors’ profession needs to take place, to more actively encourage those who might want to apply for judicial office.”128
77.We heard that the nature of solicitors’ partnerships, compared to self-employment, meant that solicitors found it difficult openly to pursue judicial aspirations as it could result in being marginalised within their firm. Lord Neuberger said that “if their partners discover they have applied to become a part-time judge, it may not always lead them to be frozen out but it can lead them to being effectively reduced in importance in the firm because of the way in which solicitors work.”129 This is in clear contrast to barristers’ chambers where a judicial appointment is regarded as routine. Baroness Hale, explained that:
“it is the difference between practising in partnership and practising as sole practitioners. If a barrister, as a sole practitioner, takes time away from his practice to do some part-time judging, nobody else in chambers loses any money, whereas if a partner in a big firm of solicitors takes time away from his practice to do so, his partners may well lose money. It is a fact of life, so one has to think of ways in which that could be got round.”130
78.Additionally, the nature of promotion opportunities in law firms often meant that solicitors who may be ready for judicial appointment were, at the same time, pursuing partnership prospects within their firm. Lord Justice Burnett explained:
“The reality is that those applying particularly for part-time appointment are likely to do so in their 40s, which is a time when most professionals are at the height of their earning power and thus it is not necessarily welcome to the partners of a big law practice to see somebody devoting time elsewhere and to sense that his or her ambitions are moving in a different direction.”131
79.Anna Nice drew attention to the practical difficulties faced by small law firms in accommodating the process of appointment. She said:
“I discussed the prospect of applying with my firm. I am a solicitor in a firm of then five partners. It is a fairly small firm and it would have made quite a big impact … It is very difficult, particularly for small firms, suddenly to start looking for a new partner—which is a pretty senior appointment—and particularly if they cannot tell the people they are interviewing why the other partner is leaving. That is something you would really want to know if you were applying for a role as a partner in a firm—why the changes are happening and what is going on—and you cannot tell them. There is all that silence and uncertainty.”132
Government lawyers
80.Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and government lawyers may apply for roles if they satisfy the judicial appointment eligibility conditions, and have a relevant legal qualification and legal experience. However, for most salaried roles, there is an expectation that candidates will have previous judicial experience, which government lawyers can find difficult to gain.
81.In our 2012 report we suggested individuals must not be prevented from becoming judges because of their status as government lawyers and concluded that “it is in the public interest that high quality candidates are not discouraged from applying to join the [Government Legal Department] or CPS because of a potential lack of career progression to the judiciary.”133
82.The Government responded:
“the Ministry of Justice notes the observation … Although we are not currently minded to relax operational restrictions relating to the appointments of members of the [Government Legal Department] or CPS to judicial office, through the Judicial Diversity Taskforce and co-ordinating with the JAC Outreach programme, those opportunities where members are eligible to apply will be promoted across the employed legal profession.”134
83.However, during our follow up inquiry, we were told about the perceived conflict that arises when someone who is “employed to prosecute” is then “working on behalf of the Crown”135 to adjudicate independently, and this is a current barrier to CPS and government lawyers becoming judges.
84.Lord Thomas explained the problems with working in both capacities:
“If I may take the analogy of Europe, many judges on the continent may be a prosecutor for three or four years. Then they become a judge and then they become a prosecutor again. There is nothing wrong in that system, but you can only do one job at one time. If we assume that I was trying a case and one of the counsel was from the CPS, fine. But suppose you were in front of someone and he said, ‘I spend my time prosecuting. I am the judge in this case. My full-time employers are the Crown’. There is a real problem. That is certainly the consistent advice from independent counsel that the judiciary has received over the years, and some of the people who have advised have been of very significant eminence.”136
85.However, Robin Allen QC told us that if “perceptions of bias” were “managed sensibly” there is a “cohort of potential judicial resource that could be tapped in appropriate cases.”137 Robert Bourns said that “the Crown Prosecution Service employ a lot of barristers and solicitors at a senior level, with a great deal of relevant experience. They are not appointable. They cannot apply. It is not only a good population of practitioners; it is also a very diverse population. People ought to apply their minds to the issues around whether or not they should be encouraged to apply, or allowed to apply.”138
86.We heard that statistics on the career paths of applicants were not available as data on the background of candidates were not collected. Lord Thomas explained:
“if you are the appointing body, you are not necessarily so interested in collecting data. I can tell you how many solicitors and barristers, although I do not have the figures here, have applied. What I cannot tell you is their origins, because no one collected that information. We started to collect that last year and we will have figures that we will publish soon.”139
87.Given the diverse and largely untapped group of government lawyers who may be suitable for judicial appointment, we explored what could be done to allow them to gain relevant judicial experience without risking perceived or actual conflicts of interest. Lord Thomas told us:
“we have said that we will try to encourage into the criminal recorderships people who have all this outstanding potential, but we must then make certain that we take exactly the same attitude to recruitment to the District Bench and to the Tribunals from the CPS. Many of them are now starting to work in the Tribunals so that they can do something that is compatible with their prosecutorial function.”140
88.We recognise the concerns about potential conflicts of interest if serving government and CPS lawyers undertake judicial work. However, these lawyers are an important potential source of recruits to the judiciary—and the CPS in particular has an ethnically diverse workforce which remains largely untapped.
89.We welcome the opportunity for government lawyers to gain judicial experience, particularly in tribunals. We encourage the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice to consider whether there are other ways in which CPS and government lawyers can gain relevant judicial experience without compromising the public perception of the independence and impartiality of the judiciary. This might involve, for example, allowing government lawyers to sit to try cases when they are either geographically removed from their normal place of work or when the subject matter lies outside their usual areas of work.
Chartered legal executives
90.Chartered legal executives are legally qualified individuals who usually practise in one area of law. They follow a different training path to the traditional solicitor qualification; their prescribed routes are set out by the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx).141
91.We heard that, at present, chartered legal executives were “only able to apply for district judge positions and below”, under the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, and so were unable to serve as circuit judges or higher.142 As a result, many CILEx applicants were discouraged from applying for judicial appointment. Millicent Grant, then Vice-President (now President) of CILEx explained that chartered legal executives “cannot go beyond district judges, so they are less likely to apply, because if they stay within a firm and are employed, the potential for them to progress within the profession is much greater.”143 She added that “if a chartered legal executive has been invited to enter the judicial profession, then it would be more attractive to them if they knew they could then move up.”144
92.Robin Allen QC suggested that “for somebody who has come through CILEx and taken full-time judicial appointment, that judicial appointment might itself be considered a basis for further progression within the legal system. I do not see there is any reason why that could not happen.”145 CILEx recommended “that the eligibility of Chartered Legal Executives for judicial positions be the same as those for solicitors and barristers” as “this would avoid a situation whereby a solicitor or barrister has the opportunity of entering the judiciary at any level, but a Chartered Legal Executive must start in the lower rungs.”146
93.Millicent Grant added that there were perceptions of unconscious bias against chartered legal executives when it came to judicial appointments:
“quite often, when discussions of lawyers are taking place, the mention is of solicitors and barristers, and chartered legal executives are often an add-on, if they are mentioned at all. That indicates that there is an unconscious bias against including them as lawyers, and in consideration. That needs to be addressed, because when I see that happen, I think, ‘You are saying the right things and it is genuine’, but our members’ perception is that, ‘You are saying that but when you talk about lawyers you do not include us’. They think that is how their experience will be if they join the judiciary.”147
94.As with government lawyers, chartered legal executives are a diverse group of potential applicants for judicial office. Millicent Grant said that “our profession incorporates a lot of people who come from a diverse background, who have developed skills just by the route by which they have qualified.”148 We explore diversity in greater detail in the next chapter.
95.We see no reason why chartered legal executives who demonstrate the requisite attributes are unable to achieve promotion beyond the district bench. We encourage the Lord Chancellor, in consultation with the Lord Chief Justice, to reconsider this.
Academics
96.Lord Neuberger drew attention to the pool of potential candidates in academia who could be considered for the judiciary: “one thing that we have been doing is to cast the net more widely. The Supreme Court is quite limited in who it can look for. There is obviously the academic world and practising lawyers.”149 Lady Hale added:
“clearly, some previous judicial experience is desirable, but of course there are lots of different ways in which you can get previous judicial experience … I was an academic lawyer for a great deal of my career … Most people are still going to have come through the normal channels, but with 12 justices and so many vacancies there is room for a greater variety of all sorts. Diversity has many dimensions.”150
Increasing the success rate of applicants
97.There is a low success rate of applicants for judicial office from non-barrister backgrounds. Liz Truss MP said that “34% of applicants to be High Court judges were solicitors. Only 9% of those were shortlisted and only 4% were successful.”151 Figures published since she gave evidence showed that between 1 April 2016 and 31 March 2017, solicitors represented 43% (746) of applicants to legal exercises, but just 10% (14) of the successful candidates.152 Figure 1 illustrates the current legal role representation at each stage, for exercises completed between 1 April 2016 and 31 March 2017.
Figure 1: Current legal role representation at each stage, for exercises completed between 1 April 2016 and 31 March 2017 (legal posts)
Source: Judicial Appointments Commission, Judicial Selection and Recommendations for Appointment: Official Statistics, 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017, Figure 8: https://jac.judiciary.gov.uk/sites/default/files/sync/about_the_jac/official_statistics/statisticsbulletin-jac-2016–17.pdf [accessed 26 October 2017]
98.Between 1 April 2014 and 1 April 2017 the proportion of judges with a non-barrister background in the courts decreased from 37% to 34%.153 In the tribunals, the proportion of judges with a non-barrister background was almost unchanged: 67% in 2015 and 66% in 2017.154
99.As Figure 2 illustrates, there was better representation from those from non-barrister backgrounds in the lower courts than at the higher ranks of the judiciary. Virtually all candidates who declared their background as non-barristers were formerly solicitors.155
Figure 2: The percentage of court judges whose profession is non-barrister, 1 April 2017
Source: Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and Senior President of Tribunals, Judicial Diversity Statistics 2017, p 8
100.There have only ever been two former solicitors who have been appointed to the Court of Appeal.156 Of the 13 High Court judges announced recently, only two were solicitors when appointed,157 and of the 21 appointments for deputy high court judges, only two were solicitors at the point of application.158
101.We heard that success rates were also low for chartered legal executives. Millicent Grant said that “between 2010 and 2015, 202 CILEx members applied for judicial posts. Twenty-two were shortlisted and only the two were appointed.”159
Why are the success rates low?
102.In our 2012 report we raised concerns about the preferential treatment of barristers for judicial appointment. We said that “we consider that it is the capacity to be a good judge, not the capacity to be a good barrister, which is essential to merit.”160 Despite efforts to address this issue, progress has been slow. Robert Bourns, then President of the Law Society, told us “we are trying to make sure our candidates are better prepared, but there is a perception that experience at the Bar is regarded as better than other experience. I am not going to repeat the point but our candidates have had a similar experience of the mechanics of the most recent round. We have received quite a lot of complaints about that.”161
103.A number of reasons were suggested for the low success rate among legal professionals. Liz Truss MP said that “people with perhaps less courtroom experience might be disadvantaged compared with someone with courtroom experience, even though they are of equal judicial aptitude.”162
104.Robert Bourns suggested that solicitors were “not used to being interviewed or going into a selection process.”163 There was also a different culture between solicitors and barristers when it came to failure to be appointed to the judiciary. He explained:
“That disappointment in the solicitor population can mean that they do not then repeat the process. At the Bar, people are much more used to both personally and in the environment speaking to colleagues: “You applied in this round, you were not successful. Do not worry about it; you will surely prevail next time around”. I understand that people can apply three or four times before they are finally appointed.”164
105.He suggested that solicitors were “not presenting well in the final interview stages,” and that there may be a subconscious bias whereby the appointment panel recruit in their own image: “What I pick up is that there are perhaps, at that point, perceptions within the appointing panel as to what a member of the judiciary might look like in the broadest sense in terms of their experience and skills. That is the concern people have.”165
106.Lord Thomas suggested that “the problem in the past has been that we have tended to assess people for appointment as deputies [deputy county court judges] on the basis of the skill they have in an area rather than looking for potential.”166
107.Robin Allen discussed the low progression rate through the judicial application process for some groups, particularly Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) candidates:
“the statistics on success rates from BAME applicants in recorder competitions showed that there was a significant decrease from application through the first stages and then through to appointment in the rates of success. We were very concerned at that and asked the JAC what it thought was going on. There was the barriers research that JAC introduced, and it was suggested that some BAME applicants across the entire profession were ‘not ready for appointment’. That is a euphemism, but what it is a euphemism for we have never quite got to grips with. But we thought we had to address this and see how we could make applicants for judicial posts—whether solicitor, barrister or CILEx member—ready for appointment.”167
What is being done?
108.Lord Justice Burnett said that a “vast amount of work” had been done by the JAC and others to encourage more solicitors to consider applying for judicial roles.168 Lord Kakkar said the JAC was working “to ensure that there are tools and professional development opportunities available earlier in an individual legal professional’s career to help them think about eventual judicial appointment and develop themselves over a period of time to make a successful application.”169
109.Millicent Grant told us that CILEx was launching a judicial development programme, organising an annual “judicial awareness day” and supporting their members who expressed an interest in applying for judicial posts.170
110.Robert Bourns said that when he admitted new solicitors to the roll, he told them that “one of the things they should think about, as well as being members of the Bar, is the potential for judicial appointment.”171 He explained that he “mention[s] it at what is effectively day one” of their legal careers and that “the whole way through we should be encouraging people to consider their options. They are many and various, and judicial appointment is one of them.”172 He explained the Law Society’s initiatives to encourage applications from under-represented legal professions:
“We have had sessions across England and Wales inviting people to consider judicial appointment. We invite them. Those are open meetings. They do not have to pay for them. They do hear from members of the judiciary, frequently solicitor judges. We have also been very pleased to receive support from the very senior members of the judiciary.”173
111.Robin Allen QC emphasised the importance of pre-application judicial education:
“Within the Judicial Diversity Forum … we have put forward proposals for pre-application judicial education … We have developed a curriculum, which we hope will be capable of being delivered … some time in the course of the next 18 months, if we get sufficient support. The curriculum will look at judgecraft, job framework, judicial ethics, resilience, and equality and diversity. The idea is that whatever walk of life you might have been in within the legal profession as a whole, whether a solicitor or CILEx member or a barrister in one area or another, you can go through a programme that will help prepare you for application.”174
112.We welcome the outreach work undertaken by the Judicial Appointments Commission and the professional bodies to ensure that there are development opportunities and tools available to assist potential applicants for judicial roles.
113.However, we are concerned about the disparities that remain between the number of solicitors and chartered legal executives applying for judicial roles and the number being recommended for appointment. Non-barrister applicants may still perceive that those with advocacy experience are preferred as candidates, and that this is in part responsible for the low application rate. A significant cultural shift is required to address this.
114.We encourage the JAC to collect data on the reasons why applicants are not successful. We recommend that the Lord Chancellor, the senior judiciary, and all professional bodies work with law firms to encourage a cultural change within the solicitors’ profession in general, and within law firms in particular, to provide better support for solicitors applying for judicial positions.
“Reserve lists”
115.We heard about the use of section 94 lists under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005175 (also known as “reserve lists”) in the judicial appointments process.176 Successful candidates may be placed on “reserve lists” and offered judicial posts when they arise. The lists are reviewed after 12 months and will normally be closed after a year or two, depending on business needs and forthcoming exercises,177 after which individuals who have not yet been offered or taken a position will have to re-apply. The JAC state that “after this length of time there may be a wider pool of eligible candidates”178 and as such they would be concerned that they would not be “fulfilling [their] statutory duty to recommend the most meritorious candidates by relying solely on a previous section 94 list.”179
116.We agree with the Judicial Appointments Commission that their responsibility is to recommend appointment of the most meritorious candidates from the eligible pool, provided that the candidates themselves meet the required standards. The use of “reserve lists” identifying appointable candidates to fill unanticipated vacancies is obviously sensible, but each new competition must identify the most meritorious candidates, and may produce better candidates than those on the “reserve list”.
100 Judiciary of England and Wales, The Lord Chief Justice’s Report, p 10
102 Ibid.
105 Review Body on Senior Salaries, Thirty-Ninth Annual Report on Senior Salaries 2017, para 1.53
106 Ibid., para 1.54
107 Ibid.
108 Judicial Appointments Commission, ‘High Court judge selection to launch on 12 January 2017’, 19 December 2016: https://jac.judiciary.gov.uk/news/high-court-judge-selection-launch-12-january-2017 [accessed 26 October 2017]; Judicial Appointments Commission, ‘High Court Judges’, 2017: https://jac.judiciary.gov.uk/high-court-judges [accessed 26 October 2017]
109 Judicial Appointments Commission, ‘High Court Judges’, 2017
111 Ibid.
112 Judicial Appointments Commission, ‘Circuit Judge Information page’, 23 March 2017: https://jac.judiciary.gov.uk/052-circuit-judge-2017-information-page [accessed 26 October 2017]
113 Judicial Appointments Commission, ‘Vacancies: District Judge’, July 2017: https://jac.judiciary.gov.uk/vacancies/062 [accessed 26 October 2017]
114 Ibid.
115 The JAC said the near-2,500 applications was an unprecedented number—it had 1,250 for the last recorder competition in 2015: Legal Futures, ‘Chaos as judicial appointments website crashes with 2,500 would-be recorders trying to take test’, 16 February 2017: http://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/chaos-judicial-appointments-website-crashes-2500-recorders-trying-take-test [accessed 26 October 2017]
116 Judicial Appointments Commission, Annual Report and Accounts: 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017, 6 July 2017, p 5: https://jac.judiciary.gov.uk/sites/default/files/sync/about_the_jac/annual-report-2016–17.pdf [accessed 26 October 20177]
119 Constitution Committee, Judicial Appointments, para 119
120 Ministry of Justice, Government response to the House of Lords Constitution Committee’s Report: Judicial Appointments, para 27
124 Annual oral evidence taken on 29 March 2017 (Session 2016–17) Q 10 (Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury)
126 Ibid.
127 Constitution Committee, Judicial Appointments, para 125
128 Ministry of Justice, Government response to the House of Lords Constitution Committee’s Report: Judicial Appointments
129 Annual oral evidence taken on 29 March 2017 (Session 2016–17) Q 10 (Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury)
133 Constitution Committee, Judicial Appointments, para 132
134 Ministry of Justice, Government response to the House of Lords Constitution Committee’s Report: Judicial Appointments, para 27
140 Ibid.
141 CILEx Law School, ‘What is a legal executive?’: http://www.cilexlawschool.ac.uk/Prospective_Students/Qualify_as_a_legal_executive/What_is_a_legal_executive [accessed 26 October 2017]
150 Ibid.
152 Judicial Appointments Commission, Judicial Selection and Recommendations for Appointment: Official Statistics, 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017, p 10: https://jac.judiciary.gov.uk/sites/default/files/sync/about_the_jac/official_statistics/statisticsbulletin-jac-2016–17.pdf [accessed 26 October 2017]
153 Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and Senior President of Tribunals, Judicial Diversity Statistics 2017: https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/about-the-judiciary/who-are-the-judiciary/diversity/judicial-diversity-statistics-2017/ and https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/judicial-diversity-statistics-2017-1.pdf [accessed 26 October 2017]
154 Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and Senior President of Tribunals, Judicial Diversity Statistics 2017
155 Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and Senior President of Tribunals, Judicial Diversity Statistics 2017, p 8
156 Judicial Appointments Commission, ‘Gary Hickinbottom’: https://jac.judiciary.gov.uk/case-study/gary-hickinbottom-high-court-queens-bench-division [accessed 26 October 2017]
157 Judicial Appointments Commission, ‘High Court Judges’: https://jac.judiciary.gov.uk/high-court-judges [accessed 26 October 2017]
158 The Law Society, ‘New deputy high court judges congratulated’: https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/news/press-releases/new-deputy-high-court-judges-congratulated/ [accessed 26 October 2017]
160 Constitution Committee, Judicial Appointments, para 84
165 Ibid.
172 Ibid.
173 Ibid.
175 Judicial Appointments Commission, ‘Selection for future appointments’: https://jac.judiciary.gov.uk/selection-future-appointments [accessed 26 October 2017]
177 Judicial Appointments Commission, ‘Selection for future appointments’
178 Ibid.
179 Ibid.