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The Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) is an independent commission that selects candidates for judicial office in courts and tribunals in England and Wales and for some tribunals whose jurisdiction extends to Scotland or Northern Ireland.
The JAC recommends candidates for appointment as judges of the High Court and to all judicial offices listed in Schedule 14 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. It also provides support for selections to fill judicial posts that lie outside its responsibilities under Schedule 14. For example, the JAC convenes panels that recommend candidates for appointment to senior posts such as the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Master of the Rolls, President of the King's Bench Division, President of the Family Division, Chancellor of the High Court and Lords Justices of Appeal. The JAC is not responsible for selecting justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom although a lay Commissioner does sit on the selection panel. Additionally, the Lord Chancellor may request the JAC's assistance in connection with other appointments that the Lord Chancellor considers appropriate.
The JAC is a non-departmental public body which was created on 3 April 2006 through the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. It took over a responsibility previously held by the Lord Chancellor and the Department for Constitutional Affairs (previously the Lord Chancellor's Department), although the Lord Chancellor retains responsibility for appointing some selected candidates. In other cases the Lord Chief Justice or the Senior President of Tribunals makes the final appointments.
The Appropriate Authority (either the Lord Chancellor, Lord Chief Justice or Senior President of Tribunals) can accept or reject a JAC recommendation, or ask the Commission to reconsider it. If the Appropriate Authority rejects a recommendation or asks for reconsideration they must provide written reasons to the JAC.
Under the Constitutional Reform Act, the Lord Chancellor also lost his other judicial functions, including the right to sit as a judge in the House of Lords. The Act also established the Lord Chief Justice as head of the judiciary of England and Wales. The Act has since been amended by the Crime and Courts Act 2013.
Under the Constitutional Reform Act Parliament gave the JAC the following statutory duties:
The Judicial Appointments Commission comprises 15 commissioners. Twelve, including the Chairman, are appointed through open competition, with the other three selected by the Judges' Council (two senior members of the courts judiciary) or the Tribunal Judges' Council (one senior member of the tribunals judiciary). [1]
The Chairman of the Commission must always be a lay member. Of the 14 other Commissioners:
The legal qualifications referred to are:
The members of the Commission (as at 1 June 2023) [2] are:
Chairman:
Vice Chairman:
Professional members:
Judicial members:
of which Tribunal members:
Lay justice:
Lay members:
The JAC has a staff of around 50 public servants.
The Chief Executive is Dr Richard Jarvis, with Alice Ripley as Deputy Chief Executive, Sharon Foster-King as Head of Operations and Digital and Ian Thomson as Head of Corporate Services.
The Judicial Appointments Commission is separate from the Commission for Judicial Appointments (CJA). The CJA was established in March 2001 to review the procedures for the appointment of judges and QCs, and to investigate complaints into those procedures. It closed on 31 March 2006 with the establishment of the Judicial Appointments Commission and the Judicial Appointments and Conduct Ombudsman (JACO). A separate Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland and Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Commission undertake similar functions for Scotland and Northern Ireland, respectively.
The Judicial Appointments Commission has been criticised for having too much power over judicial appointments at the expense of ministers. Robert Hazell and Timothy Foot have argued that the JAC's set-up means that any ministerial discretion in the choice of judges is purely nominal, with the JAC being the final appointer. [4] Richard Ekins and Graham Gee have proposed amending the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 to restore a meaningful choice over judicial candidates to the Lord Chancellor. [5]
Judicial independence is the concept that the judiciary should be independent from the other branches of government. That is, courts should not be subject to improper influence from the other branches of government or from private or partisan interests. Judicial independence is important for the idea of separation of powers.
The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The lord chancellor is appointed by the sovereign on the advice of the prime minister. Prior to the union of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain, there were separate lord chancellors for the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. There were Lord Chancellors of Ireland until 1922.
The Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales is the head of the Judiciary of England and Wales and the president of the Courts of England and Wales.
The High Court of Justiciary is the supreme criminal court in Scotland. The High Court is both a trial court and a court of appeal. As a trial court, the High Court sits on circuit at Parliament House or in the adjacent former Sheriff Court building in the Old Town in Edinburgh, or in dedicated buildings in Glasgow and Aberdeen. The High Court sometimes sits in various smaller towns in Scotland, where it uses the local sheriff court building. As an appeal court, the High Court sits only in Edinburgh. On one occasion the High Court of Justiciary sat outside Scotland, at Zeist in the Netherlands during the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial, as the Scottish Court in the Netherlands. At Zeist the High Court sat both as a trial court, and an appeal court for the initial appeal by Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, relevant to UK constitutional law. It provides for a Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to take over the previous appellate jurisdiction of the Law Lords as well as some powers of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and removed the functions of Speaker of the House of Lords and Head of the Judiciary of England and Wales from the office of Lord Chancellor.
The courts of Scotland are responsible for administration of justice in Scotland, under statutory, common law and equitable provisions within Scots law. The courts are presided over by the judiciary of Scotland, who are the various judicial office holders responsible for issuing judgments, ensuring fair trials, and deciding on sentencing. The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland, subject to appeals to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, and the High Court of Justiciary is the supreme criminal court, which is only subject to the authority of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom on devolution issues and human rights compatibility issues.
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom for all civil cases, and for criminal cases originating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As the United Kingdom’s highest appellate court for these matters, it hears cases of the greatest public or constitutional importance affecting the whole population.
The chief justice of Ireland is the president of the Supreme Court of Ireland. The chief justice is the highest judicial office and most senior judge in Ireland. The role includes constitutional and administrative duties, in addition to taking part in ordinary judicial proceedings.
There are various levels of judiciary in England and Wales—different types of courts have different styles of judges. They also form a strict hierarchy of importance, in line with the order of the courts in which they sit, so that judges of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales are given more weight than district judges sitting in county courts and magistrates' courts. On 1 April 2020 there were 3,174 judges in post in England and Wales. Some judges with United Kingdom-wide jurisdiction also sit in England and Wales, particularly Justices of the United Kingdom Supreme Court and members of the tribunals judiciary.
The judiciary of Pakistan is the national system of courts that maintains the law and order in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan uses a common law system, which was introduced during the colonial era, influenced by local medieval judicial systems based on religious and cultural practices. The Constitution of Pakistan lays down the fundamentals and working of the Pakistani judiciary.
A justice of the High Court, commonly known as a High Court judge, is a judge of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, and represents the third-highest level of judge in the courts of England and Wales. High Court judges are referred to as puisne justices and wear red and black robes.
The judiciaries of the United Kingdom are the separate judiciaries of the three legal systems in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The judges of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, Employment Tribunals, Employment Appeal Tribunal and the UK tribunals system do have a United Kingdom–wide jurisdiction but judgments only apply directly to the jurisdiction from which a case originates as the same case points and principles do not inevitably apply in the other jurisdictions. In employment law, employment tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal have jurisdiction in the whole of Great Britain.
The Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland is an advisory non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government responsible for making recommendations on appointments to certain offices of the judiciary of Scotland. It was established in June 2002 on a non-statutory, ad hoc, basis by the Scottish Government, and was given statutory authority by the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008.
The President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is equivalent to the now-defunct position of Senior Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, also known as the Senior Law Lord, who was the highest ranking among the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary. The President is not the most senior judge of the judiciary in England and Wales; that position belongs to the Lord Chief Justice. The current President is Robert Reed, since 13 January 2020.
The Senior President of Tribunals is a senior judge in the United Kingdom who presides over the UK tribunal system. The Senior President is appointed by the monarch of the United Kingdom on the advice of the Lord Chancellor following the recommendation of an independent selection panel under the auspices of the Judicial Appointments Commission. Lord Justice Carnwath was appointed as the first holder of the post on 12 November 2007. The Senior President must satisfy the judicial-appointment eligibility condition on a seven-year basis, or have had similar experience in Scotland or Northern Ireland. The Senior President must have regard to the need for the following:
In the United Kingdom, a tribunal is a specialist court with jurisdiction over a certain area of civil law. They are generally designed to be more informal and accessible than 'traditional' courts.
The Judges' Council is a body in England and Wales that, representing the judiciary, advises the Lord Chief Justice on judicial matters. It has its historical roots in the original Council of the Judges of the Supreme Court, created by the Judicature Act 1873 to oversee the new Supreme Court of Judicature. This body initially met regularly, reforming the procedure used by the circuit courts, and the new High Court of Justice but met less regularly as time went on, meeting only twice between 1900 and 1907, with a gap of ten years between meetings in 1940 and 1950 respectively. After relative inactivity, it was eventually wound up through the Supreme Court Act 1981, which contained no provisions for its continued existence, something Denis Dobson attributes to newer bodies which performed the duties the Council had originally been created to do.
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom are the judges of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom other than the president and the deputy president of the court. The Supreme Court is the highest court of the United Kingdom for all civil cases, and for criminal cases from the jurisdictions of England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Judges are appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the prime minister, who receives recommendations from a selection commission.
In England and Wales, magistrates are trained volunteers, selected from the local community, who deal with a wide range of criminal and civil proceedings. They are also known as Justices of the Peace. In the adult criminal court, magistrates decide on offences which carry up to twelve months in prison, or an unlimited fine. Magistrates also sit in the family court where they help resolve disputes that involve children, and in the youth court which deals with criminal matters involving young people aged 10-17. Established over 650 years ago, the magistracy is a key part of the judiciary of England and Wales, and it is a role underpinned by the principles of 'local justice' and 'justice by one's peers'.
The judiciary of Scotland are the judicial office holders who sit in the courts of Scotland and make decisions in both civil and criminal cases. Judges make sure that cases and verdicts are within the parameters set by Scots law, and they must hand down appropriate judgments and sentences. Judicial independence is guaranteed in law, with a legal duty on Scottish Ministers, the Lord Advocate and the Members of the Scottish Parliament to uphold judicial independence, and barring them from influencing the judges through any form of special access.
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