Introduction
Judicial selection systems are a significant part of the legal community. There are many methods by which judges can be selected. These include executive appointments, legislative appointments, gubernatorial appointments, non-partisan elections, partisan elections, and merit selections (Kahn, 2019).
With these various methods, numerous research studies have shown that different judges from different selection methods portray different approaches when it comes to decision-making. Some judges make biased decisions, mainly due to external influences that interfere with how a judge upholds the rule of law. The main external effects include politics, finances, ulterior motives, and loyal relationships. For example, a judge could make a decision that aligns with or favors a political party that lost in the case of a political conflict. However, these influences can be eliminated to achieve judicial independence, meaning judges are free from external forces that promote biased judgments (Kahn, 2019).
Different judicial selection methods have other impacts on judicial independence. Therefore, this paper discusses these selection methods to establish the best. Merit selection is the best method as it helps promote judicial independence.
Selection Methods
The Executive Appointment
The president is responsible for making judicial appointments under the organizational system. This indicates that the president should appoint judges to their positions. To begin, the president is responsible for nominating various judges and justices according to the available vacancies. This is necessary since certain judges often have life terms to serve. The federal government’s lower courts, known as district courts, have 600 judges, while the higher courts, known as courts of appeal, have 200 judges, and the Supreme Court has nine justices (Vining et al., 2023).
The American Bar Association, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, members of Congress, and the Justice Department are some organizations that routinely provide the president of the United States with recommendations for the nomination process. Even with the guidelines, the president is still required to consider several essential aspects when appointing judges. Many elements include prior experience, personal and party allegiances, ethnicity, gender, and political philosophy.
For experience, the president looks at individuals who have worked in the government and those with relevant higher education, such as law degrees. For party and personal loyalties, the president often considers individuals who are in the same political party as they are. This is because judges of the same political party are likely to hold a high degree of loyalty to the federal (Vining et al., 2023).
The president can also decide to appoint people who are loyal to them on a personal level. Regarding political ideology, the president leans towards judges with the same political ideologies. For instance, a liberal president will go for judges with a liberal ideology (Vining et al., 2023). Lastly, the factor of ethnicity and gender is considered by mixing whites and African Americans and including women in courts. Once the president is done nominating the judges, these nominations must pass through confirmation by the Senate.
The Merit Selection Process
Two stages characterize the merit selection process. First, several qualified candidates are nominated by a merit commission (Arrington, 2020). This commission often consists of non-partisan citizens, usually lawyers and non-lawyers. The merit commission members pay more attention to evaluating and investigating the candidates during a short probationary period.
Secondly, the list of nominated candidates is forwarded to the governor for the appointment process (Arrington, 2020). This merit selection process focuses on eliminating the influence of finances on selecting judges because the merit members are non-partisan. This means that they are from diverse political, ethnic, and racial backgrounds, as well as diverse occupations.
Gubernatorial Appointment
The gubernatorial appointment method is quite a direct selection method for judges. It simply involves the governor appointing judges. In this method, no list of candidates provided by a commission or a recommendation list exists (Vining et al., 2023). As such, the appointment takes place directly, making it more straightforward. However, there has to be a government body, such as the legislative body, that confirms the judges’ position before taking office. In other words, the gubernatorial method does not have candidate judges running for selection.
Legislative Appointment
The appointment of legislative body members is mainly the lawmakers’ duty. This approach is also considered direct because it entails state lawmakers’ immediate work of judges (Vining et al., 2023). The appointment procedure is handled entirely independently of the governor and public committees. To choose qualified judges, this procedure depends on the experience and knowledge of persons with a history in the law.
Partisan Elections
Candidates engage in head-to-head competition throughout the election process under the partisan election system. The voter casts their vote based on a ballot that includes all the candidates’ names. Notable in this regard is the fact that the terms of these candidates also have the political party they stand for, which indicates their political affinities (Vining et al., 2023). After that, voters will cast their ballots for the candidates of their choice on the general election platform.
Following that, the election winners are the candidates who received at least 50% of the vote. Remember that the partisan election process also enables candidates to organize campaigns to appeal to the people they believe they can win over. As a result, political inclinations and allegiances are included in the selection of judges via the partisan election procedure.
Non-Partisan Elections
The election of judges may be done using a ballot voting procedure or through the partisan election technique. On the other hand, there is no indication of political parties on the names of the candidates, as is the case with the system of partisan elections (Vining et al., 2023). During the general election process, people cast their ballots for the candidates of their choosing without considering the candidates’ party affiliations. Thus, this approach does not consider personal political views or allegiances.
Analysis of the Best Selection Method
Of all the selection methods, the best selection method is the one that promotes judicial independence. Judicial independence is not usually the primary goal but a means to an end, insulation from external influences. Apart from the merit selection method, all the other methods have been critiqued to be far from promoting judicial independence (Vakilifathi & Kousser, 2020). To begin with, partisan election out-rightly encourages impartial decision-making by judges. This is because the method is highly political, yet judicial independence requires that political preferences not interfere with decision-making in court cases.
The judges selected from the partisan method are no different than politicians; hence, there are likely political biases in courts. As for gubernatorial appointments, the governor may not consider qualified candidates but rather consider personal relationships or political affiliations in positions. This way, judges may make courtroom decisions with the intention of pleasing or rewarding the governor who appointed them (Vakilifathi & Kousser, 2020).
In other words, the main goal of judicial independence is to eliminate politics in judicial appointments, which is not achievable in gubernatorial appointment methods because governors are politically oriented (Vakilifathi & Kousser, 2020). The executive appointment method is also political because the president gets to nominate judges from the same political party as his. The judges will, therefore, make decisions based on the president’s political ideologies, hence biases.
Moreover, in as much as the non-partisan election method avoids political influences, the fact that voters are involved means that there is pressure on the judges to conform to the interests or opinions of those who campaigned for them. Thus, the judges may not fully consider the law and facts when deciding cases.
However, when it comes to the merit selection method, a diverse group of people is selected by non-partisan committee members. This shields the appointed judges from political pressures and loyalties (Vakilifathi & Kousser, 2020). It also eliminates financial influences since the committee includes lawyers and non-lawyers. These reasons make the merit selection process the best of all the other methods as it promotes judicial independence.
Conclusion
In conclusion, six different approaches may be employed in the selection process for judges. It has been shown that these procedures result in judges using unique techniques while determining individual cases. Nonetheless, studies have shown that the ideal system is often not subject to the sway of political forces or the commitments of interpersonal relationships. As was previously noted, the selection method based on merit is the one that works best to achieve this judicial independence.
References
Arrington, N. B. (2020). Judicial merit selection: Beliefs about fairness and the undermining of gender diversity on the bench. Political Research Quarterly, 74(4), 1152–1167. Web.
Kahn, P. W. (2019). Independence and responsibility in the judicial role. In Transition to democracy in Latin America: The role of the judiciary (pp. 73-87). Routledge.
Vakilifathi, M., & Kousser, T. (2020). Does judicial selection affect judicial performance? Evidence from a natural experiment. The Forum, 18(1), 25–50. Web.
Vining, R. L., Bullock, C. S., & Boldt, E. D. (2023). The politics of interim judicial appointments. Journal of Law and Courts, 1–20. Web.