European Perspectives on a Judicial Appointments Commission

Abstract

The natural models for English debates on judicial appointments have been from the common law. Although England and Wales remain very much within the common law world and its problems, we are increasingly drawn into a European world, where many of our ideas and standards are shaped by our participation in European agendas. There are important lessons to be learnt from European experience in this area. Based on that European experience, one can see a tension between the desire to give the judiciary greater independence from the executive and the practice of leaving the judiciary increasingly in charge of the processes of appointment and management of the judicial career and, even, of the judicial system itself. These tensions are much stronger in many other parts of Europe and these may serve as useful points of reference. There is an emerging European judicial model to which English debates are now referring, but which needs critical assessment.