Gee, G.D. (2017) Rethinking The Lord Chancellor’s Role In Judicial Appointments. Legal Ethics, 20 (1). pp. 4-20. ISSN 1460-728X
Abstract
The judicial appointments regime in England and Wales is unbalanced. The pre-2005 appointments regime conferred excessive discretion on the Lord Chancellor, but the post-2005 regime has gone much too far in the opposite direction. Today, the Lord Chancellor is almost entirely excluded from the process of selecting lower level judges and enjoys only limited say over the selection of senior judges. In this article I argue that the current regime places too little weight on the sound reasons for involving the minister in individual selection decisions, including the scope for ministerial input to enhance judicial independence, to supply political leadership on judicial diversity and to render more effective the discharge of the Lord Chancellor’s systemic responsibility for the justice system as a whole. I argue that shortlists reconcile the need to more fully involve the Lord Chancellor whilst at the same time ensuring that candidates satisfy a merit threshold.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Legal Ethics. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Judicial appointments; Lord Chancellor; judicial diversity |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Law (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Socio Legal Studies Association UNSPECIFIED Arts and Humanities Research Council UNSPECIFIED |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 23 Jun 2017 11:29 |
Last Modified: | 06 Jan 2019 01:38 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/1460728x.2017.1345085 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/1460728x.2017.1345085 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:118046 |