Page 73 - Judicial Diversity Update report

3.27. Upper Tribunal judges – with a few noted exceptions – are rarely promoted
into the higher courts’ judiciary. More of such appointments would evidence an
internal career path. Given that Upper Tribunal judges deal exclusively in
matters of law the Working Party is concerned by the failure of their upward
mobility.

3.28. We are concerned about how tribunal sitting is understood and valued in
appointments exercises. The functional separation between the courts and
tribunals judiciary means that most courts judges have little or no experience of
the tribunals or the kinds of work undertaken by tribunal judges.

3.29. We have taken considerable evidence that Upper Tribunal judges’
experience has been discounted by judicial selectors as involving ‘no law’, with
candidates left to explain – unsuccessfully – that theirs is an appellate
jurisdiction based entirely on points of law. There also appears to be an
unspoken hierarchy in perception of tribunal work, with some tribunals viewed
by judicial selectors as providing more ‘law-heavy’ and serious judicial
experience, with others more likely to be discounted as ‘heavily social work’,
devoid of legal challenge and therefore of any prestige.

3.30. A meaningful career path from the tribunals to the courts’ judiciary will
require the two working more closely together, ideally with tribunal judges
sitting on courts selection exercises and vice versa.

3.31. As in the courts, a career path will also require talent spotting and the active
provision of professional opportunities for those judges who are thought to have
potential. We appreciate that there is a tension at play here. We have taken
evidence that once a judge has been appointed and deployed to a particular
jurisdiction, the leadership judge within that jurisdiction may be reluctant to
lose them from their cohort. However, if the tribunals are to attract quality
judges, the real possibility of promotion is imperative. This requires cultural
change.

3.32. We welcome recent initiatives for cross-ticketing of First Tier Tribunal
judges into other tribunals and into the Court of Protection, which offer the
chance for extension and skills development. We are, however, concerned that
the way in which some of these opportunities have been framed – requiring
sitting in the original jurisdiction, as well as the second jurisdiction –
inadvertently limits the opportunities to barristers who have more flexibility in
their working arrangements than solicitors. While it is technically possible to

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