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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 October 2017
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.
1 See Malleson, K ‘Modernising the Constitution: Completing the Unfinished Business’ (2004) 24 Legal Studies 119 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Malleson, K ‘Creating a Judicial Appointments Commission: Which Model Works Best?’ (2003) PL 102.
3 Principle I, 2 c.
4 The comment in this Charter states that the Charter ‘wants neither to allow judges to be in a minority in the independent body nor to require them to be in the majority.’ In view of the variety of philosophical conceptions and debates in European states, a reference to a minimum of 50 per cent of judges emerged as capable of ensuring a fairly high degree of safeguard which respects any other considerations of principle prevailing in different national systems.
5 Responses published on the Department’s website, http://www.dca.gov.uk in February 2004.
6 General Council of the Bar submission, para 33; Judge’s Council, para 132.
7 Response to the Consultation, p 27.
8 Renoux, T (ed) Les Conseils supérieurs de la magistrature en Europe (Paris, La documentation française, 1999)Google Scholar.
9 Guarnieri, C ‘Appointment and Career of Judges in Continental Europe: The Rise of Judicial Self-Government’ (2004) 24 Legal Studies 169, 176CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 Stevens, RB The Independence of the Judiciary. The View from the Lord Chancellor’s Office (Oxford, OUP, 1993) 169 Google Scholar.
11 In the Constitutional Reform Bill, clauses 65 and following may deal with the selection of puisne judges and other judicial office holders, but there are separate provisions for Lords Justices of Appeal (cl 59), the Lord Chief Justice and Heads of Division (cl 53) and members of the Supreme Court (cl 21).
12 The structure of Part III and Schedule 12 to the Constitutional Reform Bill goes quite a way to recognising this. There is a single framework for making appointments to the judicial offices of district, circuit and puisne judge. There are provisions for the Commission to appoint a special selection panel to make appointments to higher judicial offices. Only for the Supreme Court is there a distinct commission (cl 20). To think in terms of a single judiciary at various levels enables one to consider career progression, even if the Supreme Court has to be considered as distinct, because it is a UK-wide institution.
13 Response, para 93.
14 See Ost, F ‘Juge-pacificateur, juge-arbitre, juge-entraîneur. Trois modèles de justice’, in Gérard, P, Ost, F and Van de Kerchove, M Fonction de juger et pouvoir judiciaire. Transformations et déplacements (Brussels, FUSL, 1983) 1, 36 Google Scholar: ‘In the traditional, customary model, the judge has to demonstrate special human qualities: he embodies the moral conscience of the community, he gives evidence of wisdom, he is imbued with the tradition.’
15 Garapon, A L’âne portant les réliques (Paris, Odile Jacob, 1993)Google Scholar. See Lafontaine, Fables, Title 5, Book 14 (trans Craig Hill: http://www.beastsandcitizens.com):
16 See especially Rasehorn, T ‘Unabhängige Richter oder Justizburokraten?’ [1970] Juristenzeitung 574; Bell, J ‘The Judge as Bureaucrat’ in Eekelaar, JM and Bell, J (eds) Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence—Third Series (Oxford, OUP, 1987) ch 2Google Scholar.
17 Renoux, T, ‘Rapport général introductif’ in Renoux, above n 8, 23-5.
18 Response, § 78.
19 See Bancaud, A ‘Le paradoxe de la gauche française au pouvoir: développement des libertés judiciaires et continuité de la dépendance de la Justice’ (2000) 44/45 Droit et société 61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 ’Judicial Selection Controversy at the Federal Court of Justice’ (2001) 2 German Law Journal.
21 See Wassermann, R Der politische Richter (Munich, Piper, 1972) 20–31 Google Scholar.
22 See Conseils Cd’ Etat 6 August 2002, Ozoux, AJDA 2002, 1408 (quashing of a decision to transfer other judges from Metropolitan France to la Réunion in preference to the applicant, whose wife and children remained there).
23 OVG Schleswig, 15 October 2001, see ‘Judicial Selection Controversy at the Federal Court of Justice’ (2001) 2 German Law Journal. But the judge in the case, Wolfgang Neskovic, was successfully renominated and took his place in the Bundesgerichtshof: Hamburger Abendblatt, 1 August 2002.
24 Oberto, G Recrutement et formation des magistrats en Europe. Etude comparative (Paris, Council of Europe Publishing, 2003) 13 Google Scholar.
25 Above n 23 and more generally, Gas, T ‘Les institutions de gestion et de discipline de la carrière des magistrats’, in Renoux, T, above n 8, 138 ffGoogle Scholar.
26 Guarnieri, C, above n 9 at 173.
27 See generally, Schulze, U and Shaw, G (eds) Women in the World’s Legal Professions (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2003) 272–435 Google Scholar. For an English perspective, see Hale, B ‘Equality and the Judiciary—Why Should We Want More Women Judges?’ (2001) PL 489.
28 Statistics from ENM website. This figure compares favourably with other professions. Women occupy 34% of places in French managerial and higher intellectual professions: see Le Monde, 18 December 2000.
29 Above n 27, 281.
30 Sweden only changed its rules on nationality in 2001.
31 Guarnieri, C and Pederzoli, P The Power of Judges (Oxford, OUP, 2001) 54 Google Scholar.
32 Rupp, HH ‘Die Bindung des Rechters an das Gesetz’ (1973) Neue Juristische Zeitung 1769, 1770; also Rottleutner, H ‘The Conformity of the Legal Staff’ Rechtstheorie, Beiheft 15, 441 Google Scholar. For the continuing importance of the contrast between the Obrigkeitsstaat idea and democracy, see Limbach, J Im Namen des Volkes (Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlag Anstalt, 1999) 10 Google Scholar.
33 Ardagh, J France in the New Century (London, Penguin, 2000) 45 Google Scholar.
34 See Avis of the Conseil Supérieur de la Magistrature, 28 April 2004, on the CSM website.
35 Corte constituzionale, Sentenza n° 24 of 20 January 2004.
36 Stevens, R, see above n 10, 172.
37 For a list see Guarnieri, C and Pederzoli, P, above n 31, table 1.3, 56; Guarnieri, C, above n 9 at 187.
38 In France, about 60% of the ordinary judges belong to one of the judicial unions. Of these, about 60% belong to the Union Syndicale de la Magistrature, 30% belong to the left-wing Syndicat de la Magistrature and 9% to the right-wing Association Professionnelle des Magistrats. In Spain, each union has the right to nominate candidates to Parliament to be considered for membership of the CGPJ.
39 ’The Rule of Law and a Change in the Constitution’ [2004] CLJ 317, 330.
40 See the German judges union’s resolution of 15 November 2002 from its website: http://www.drb.de/pages/html/texte/beschluss_sv.html.
41 See the debate between the Minister of Justice and representatives of judges in ‘Domstolen i framtiden’ (1999) 4 Tidskrift för Sveriges Domareförbund 13 Google Scholar.
42 Philip, L ‘La nature des Conseils supérieurs de la magistrature en Europe’ in Renoux, T, above n 8, 61 Google Scholar.