Appellate Recruitment Patterns in the Higher British Judiciary: 1850 - 1990 Page: 22
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election, and New Labour promised to appoint a judiciary that "looked like Britain"
(Labour Research 1994, 1987). Likewise, as Labour largely failed to deliver on this
promise after coming to power in 1997, it has suffered criticism in return. Rarely,
however, do the parties focus their partisan rhetoric on specific judicial appointees.
Additionally, it may also be the case that private soundings enable the Lord
Chancellor to avoid appointees whose political views might be considered so out of the
mainstream as to provide an opportunity for partisan attack. Such appointees would likely
be avoided by the Lord Chancellor as "unsafe," i.e., potentially damaging to the Lord
Chancellor's own political position.
Finally, it has become increasingly difficult in Britain to determine the partisan
affiliation or ideology of the judges prior to their appointment. Prior service as an MP has
become nonexistent. There has not been a sitting member of the High Court, Court of
Appeal, or Appellate Committee of the House of Lords who has served as an MP since
1977 (Griffith 1997, 29). Furthermore, as discussed below, barristers aspiring to judicial
appointments have no incentive to publicly disclose their political preferences, and
modern biographical sources rarely include such data. Without knowing an appointee's
political ideology or partisan background, it is naturally difficult to organize partisan or
interest group opposition to the appointment.
Perhaps ironically, the intentionally deemphasized, or possibly disguised,
influence of ideology in judicial appointments in Britain more mirrors its nearby Civil
Law neighbors than it does the American experience with which it shares a common law
heritage. Judicial selection in European civil law systems is based largely on a
bureaucratic model. That is, a judicial career starts at the beginning of an individual's22
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Thomas, Bruce K. Appellate Recruitment Patterns in the Higher British Judiciary: 1850 - 1990, dissertation, December 2004; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc4650/m1/31/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .