Berry: Lammy wants vision for the JAC
The government’s preferred candidate to chair the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) told MPs yesterday that she was relaxed about only being offered a term of 18 months, when the post was originally advertised for a three-year term.
Professor Lynne Berry said she believed Lord Chancellor David Lammy was “very keen for a sense of purpose and direction and speed” in the JAC’s activities.
At a pre-appointment scrutiny hearing held by the justice select committee, Professor Berry said she had not been set any short-term targets to improve judicial diversity, nor did she feel the 18-month term would put her under “political pressure”.
Professor Berry is currently chair of the Human Tissue Authority but will step down by the end of the year, and is also stepping down as chair of governors and pro-chancellor at the University of Westminster.
She is set to succeed Helen Pitcher as chair of the JAC, who stepped down at the beginning of this year after three years.
Responding to a comment from committee chair Andy Slaughter that she had “rather intriguingly” been offered a shorter-than usual-term, Professor Berry replied that the Lord Chancellor had “made it clear [1] that it could be renewed”.
She did not think the government was saying it was “dissatisfied” with the JAC, but after 20 years, it was “time to think again”. The JAC had been “very successful in a number of areas”, but there were other areas it needed to “think hard about”.
The professor, who originally trained as a social worker, said she had been a regulator for a long time, and worked alongside the judiciary and legal system. She had also employed “a large number of lawyers”.
She said it was “absolutely critical” that the judiciary had the confidence of the legal profession, Parliament and the public, and it was public confidence in particular she wanted to focus on.
Professor Berry said Mr Lammy wanted to see “a vision for the JAC”, along with “a commitment to working at pace and looking again at the process, which I think everyone regards as a bit slow and convoluted”.
She later added that the culture of the JAC had come to be seen as “very bureaucratic and slow, and working very well for those who are good at working their way through long, complex systems. There are ways to speed this up.”
She said Mr Lammy also wanted to see the JAC working with others to extend the pool of candidates from which judges are drawn.
Replying to a question from Labour MP Warinder Singh Juss, she said it was “quite shocking” that the proportion of Black judges had remained at 1% for 20 years and she wanted to find out why.
She said recruitment of judges still favoured candidates from the Bar, rather than solicitors and chartered legal executives. Another issue that “needs looking at” was the lack of a “career path” for judges.