JAC responds to the Judicial Appointments and Conduct Ombudsman Annual Report
The JAC welcomes the Ombudsman's valuable report.
Date: 02 July 2008
We are pleased that the level of complaints he has received on judicial appointments is so low. During the period of the report we handled applications from more than 2,500 candidates for judicial office and he received only 21 complaints.
No complaints against the Judicial Appointments Commission were upheld. Of the 21 complaints to JACO, 20 were not upheld. Only one part of one claim was upheld, and that complaint was in relation to an older exercise not conducted by the JAC.
Judicial appointment selection exercises frequently attract large numbers of high quality candidates. Of the 27 completed exercises last year there were 2,535 applicants, 931 were shortlisted, and 458 selections were sent to the Lord Chancellor.
Sir John recognises that this process will lead to disappointment for most applicants. As he says: "unsuccessful applications [for judicial appointments] are nearly always due to the strength of the competition and are not the result of unfairness in the process".
Sir John also acknowledges how far the JAC goes to make sure selections are fair, saying: "I know the JAC goes to a great deal of trouble to try to set out in as much detail as possible how the process will work for each selection exercise and the standards against which candidates will be measured."