Comments on: Bentham and judicial retirement

By: cearta.ie » Televising the Supreme Court

cearta.ie » Televising the Supreme Court — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:40:31 +0000

[...] opens for business today, in a refurbished former criminal court, after a difficult gestation. David Pannick argues in the Times today that, however unhappy its origins, the opening of a new Supreme Court is [...]

By: cearta.ie » Ding, ding! Seconds out, round one: National Portrait Gallery Wikipedia v Wikipedia

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:57:24 +0000

[...] this by TechnoLlama (Andres Guadamuz) – including the choice of image, though its subject has previously appeared on this blog – is too good to pass up (links in original): National Portrait Gallery [...]

By: cearta.ie » Plans for an Irish Court of Appeal?

cearta.ie » Plans for an Irish Court of Appeal? — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:07:45 +0000

[...] may be practical questions of numbers of judges, the divisions and panels in which to sit, and retirement ages, as well as potential problems of where to site it. In the UK, the plan to transform the House [...]

By: Eoin

Eoin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:20:12 +0000

No, he didn’t care how old they were; my point was that e didn’t like them at any age, and would therefore not have approved of them hanging around. As for Pannick’s view, I agree with you that the easier solution is to appoint earlier, but the likely appointees will not want to lose out on peak earning years by accepting an earlier appointment.

I seem to recall a senior retired Court of Appeal judge speaking at an SLS plenary on judicial appointments pointing out that there are proportionately fewer commercial than other silks seeking advancement to the bench. I remember being struck that in a session focussing on the difficulties of women and minorities gaining judicial appointment, she focussed on the difficulties of that well-known minority, the millionaire barrister.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:36:09 +0000

Did Bentham actually care how old the judges were, or is that a red herring? It was more the judicial philsophy of the day he objected to. As for Pannick’s view, I would say that we make our practitioners wait for so long for their judgeships that there is certainly a temptation to let the good ones stay on longer … but that may be an argument for appointing at a younger age.