A recipe for good judges | The Fine Print | Victor Dawes SC

How do you make a judge? The answer reveals much about the priorities of a legal system.

Broadly speaking, there are two models. Many civil law jurisdictions have a career judiciary: lawyers join the bench young and spend their careers learning to judge. The common law takes the opposite approach. Judges are usually appointed only after having a career as barristers or solicitors. Judging is not an entry-level job, but the culmination of a distinguished legal career.

Both systems work. But I have always admired one feature of the common law model: experience. By the time someone is appointed, they have spent years arguing cases, advising clients and, occasionally, surviving impossible judges. They reach the bench having already demonstrated legal ability, integrity, judgment, and the temperament expected of judicial office.

Judicial office is also a point of no return. Many successful practitioners accept a substantial pay cut to serve. Becoming a judge is less a promotion than a public calling.

The greatest strength of all, however, is judicial independence. Judges are appointed from the independent practitioners, not a career administration. Under the Basic Law, they cannot be removed simply because their decisions are unpopular. Removal is constitutionally confined to inability or misbehavior, and only upon the recommendation of an independent tribunal. That security of tenure enables judges to decide cases according to law, without fear or favor.

There is of course no perfect system and there are always human errors but the true measure of a judiciary is not whether every judge is perfect; it is whether the system consistently produces judges who are competent and independent. In that respect, the common law tradition has served Hong Kong well. The rule of law ultimately depends not just on good laws, but on judges that have learned to be fearless and unyielding at our hours of need.

Victor Dawes SC is a practising barrister.  He is a former Chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association and currently Co-Chair of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre.

𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗔𝗽𝗽 ↓