English Reforms to Judicial Selection: Comparative Lessons for American States?

This article offers a brief comparative look at American and British jurisprudential pending selection reforms, and argues that American states could improve their appointive systems by incorporating modern personnel recruitment and hiring practices. To restore public confidence in the courts, people must believe that judges exercise legitimate authority, undistorted by personal or partisan preferences. Beyond changes to the structural selection process in the Constitutional Reform Act, the extended conversations are bringing about foundational cultural shifts in the role of judges and their manner of selection. We could learn much from Britain’s modernized appointive system that aims to be open, transparent, accountable, and more diverse.