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Well said Judex Sinenomine.
The Constitutional Reform Act required that all judges be appointed solely on merit but nowhere is that defined. Unfortunately it also encourages "diversity" which is to be commended but sadly this appeared to outsiders at least to give the green light to diversity at any cost.
Apart from other problems some of the behaviour of staff at the JAC has been appalling. How else can you describe the sheer folly, not to say waste of talent, in appointing some years back one of the very few applicants who was a fluent Welsh speaker to sit at Wandsworth. At around the same time a deputy from Cornwall, a single mother with a teenage daughter, was appointed to sit at Croydon. It caused her immense disruption
Last time I saw any investigation by a Parliamentary Select Committee on the workings of the JAC the people interviewed did no include a single unsuccessful applicant.
I confess I do not know if the same system is still in operation but one of the most invidious features of an application was that the applicant would go through the entirety of the selection process and pass with flying colours only to meet stage 2. This is when the name of a possible appointee was submitted to the LCJ. he of course wouldn't have a clue who any one was so he passed it down the line to the Presiding Judge on each Circuit The PJ may well know any applicant from the Bar, ( thereby giving them an unfair advantage over solicitors) but the PJ was most unlikely to know any solicitor applicant so it was passed further down the line to DCJs and DFJs. They had more chance of knowing applicants, ( especially if they had to sit on any appeals from one), but by and large they did what they did in the past: they "took soundings". This of course was done entirely in secret and an applicant had no way of knowing who had said what Anonymity is all very well but secrecy is not. Any applicant deserves to know what has been said; at the very least to ensure it is accurate.
The system needs a radical overhaul, and quickly if the LCJs warning s are not to come true