Selecting Judges for the High Court in Northern Ireland

In any judiciary it is important that there is high level of legal skill. Judges have to be adept at determining the facts which have given rise to the case before them and at deciding what the law has to say about those facts. The higher the level of the court, the more important it is that the judges are good at their job. It is also important that members of the public have confidence that that is the case. One way that confidence can be maintained is by ensuring that the judges are reasonably representative of the community they serve. They must have the necessary judicial skills, but they must also know and understand the society they are working for. Recently there have been difficulties in appointing judges to the High Court in Northern Ireland. This blog post reports on research commissioned by the Judicial Appointments Commission, and written up for the NILQ, on why this may be the case.

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