A judicial appointment process that leaves candidates in ‘professional limbo’ while waiting for a vacancy to arise should be abolished, according to the Judicial Appointments Commission.

In its response to the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, the commission attacks the ‘very unfortunate consequences’ of the Section 94 procedure, under which it compiles lists of people eligible for vacancies that have not yet arisen.

Successful candidates have no guarantee of a job and may be left in uncertainty for a year or more, the commission says. It urges the government to repeal Section 94 of the 2005 Constitutional Reform Act.

The response, published last week, opposes most of the proposals for change to judicial appointments set out this spring in the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill and accompanying white paper. The commission says there is not enough evidence to support ‘any significant change’ to existing arrangements.

On diversity of appointments, it describes as ‘meaningless’ the white paper’s suggested target for increasing the proportion of applicants from under-represented groups.

In further criticism of the draft renewal bill, MPs condemned proposals that the Attorney General remain a government minister.

‘Transparency requires separating the political functions of the Attorney General from the legal functions,’ the justice select committee reported.