'There will be no improvement unless the structure [of judicial appointments] is altered .

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selection, promotion, training and monitoring need to be done by a single body'.So wrote the Attorney-General, Lord Williams of Mostyn, when in opposition.

His message has been taken up in a discussion document recently published by the Law Society.A judicial appointments commission was a Labour manifesto commitment.

Alas, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, announced in October 1997 that 'in the light of other substantial priorities facing his department and pressure on resources' he would not proceed with the idea.Instead, he established a review under Sir Leonard Peach to consider all aspects of judicial appointments short of who, or what, actually makes those appointments.The Law Society has an obvious sectional interest in attacking current procedures.

These are irredeemably oriented to mechanisms which derive from, and are dependent upon, the closed world of the Bar.

Undue weight is placed on secret references from secret sources within the existing judiciary, which is itself heavily weighted to the Bar.

The bias is evident at the entry level of the upper reaches.

Of 136 assistant recorders appointed in 1998/99, only 10 were solicitors.Solicitors were not the only group under-represented.

Only 22 of the assistant recorders were female and seven came from ethnic minorities.

It may be reasonably argued that the cohort of both solicitors and barristers from which this level of the judiciary could plausibly be appointed is overwhelmingly white and male.However, widening the pool of potential applicants must give more chance of appointing a more diverse bench.

In a modern society, the judiciary, like any other profession or elite, must be open to all who are suitably qualified.

What is more, the judiciary, like any other profession or elite, must be seen to be so open.Furthermore, fixation with appointment from the Bar continues the fetish with oral advocacy which has historically underlain domestic trial procedures but which is now receding in importance.

More than ever before, judges need to be able to work within a modern court system where, post-Woolf reforms, their role is changing rapidly from judges of the joust to managers of the judicial process.And what does this mean? It means that a City solicitor who has retired from practice in her mid-50s might be a better judge in the commercial court than a barrister whose has not purchased his own rail ticket for 20 years.

It means that a solicitor who has worked part-time as a tribunal chairwoman while her children were at home might aspire to a career which took her on to the County Court bench after a period as a district judge.

Overall, it means more diversity of appointment and entry routes.

Sir Leonard's worthy, but marginal, recommendations make the point.

Major reform of appointments procedure means major reform of its process -- more outside influence and more imagination.A new commission need not be a frightening creature.

A plausible shot at a reasonable structure would be obtained by combining the role of the judicial group within the Lord Chancellor's Department, the Judicial Studies Board and the Council on Tribunals under a strong independent board.

Additional comfort can be sought from foreign jurisdictions.

For example, the Canadian province of Ontario established a commission which advises on appointment of the judiciary.

It provides a model whereby parliamentary sovereignty can be maintained -- it only recommends appointments to the government but it does so under a statutory duty to combine high standards with maximum diversity.

The results are generally agreed as successful and reported as such by a research paper from the Lord Chancellor's Department itself.Lord Irvine gives us a glimmer of hope.

He 'has not ruled out consultation on a commission in this parliament'.

To him, the Law Society says: 'Come on down: the time is right'.

Enter the debate.