The Lord Chancellor’s recent decision to lift the prohibition on all holders of judicial office from returning to legal practice has, at a stroke, removed any credit otherwise due for the establishment of the independent Judicial Appointments Commission.
Previously, it was a condition of judicial service that candidates accepted that a judicial appointment was intended to last for the remainder of a person’s professional life and that, on termination of the appointment, a former judge would not return to private practice as a barrister or solicitor. The Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) has sought to justify the lifting of this prohibition by the need to improve judicial diversity. However, in its consultation paper, published on 12 September, the DCA could only provide two examples of how such diversity could be improved. One related to potential applicants’ concerns that they would be precluded from returning to legal practice should they not succeed in a judicial career. The other example referred to the possibility of younger applicants not wanting to close off mid-career options. Accordingly, the justifications given for improving diversity all related to potential applicants’ career concerns about not progressing through the judicial system and young applicants being unwilling to commit to that system.
