Judicial Appointments - It's a Competitive Process
The Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland (JABS) holds competitions to recommend suitably qualified and experienced candidates to become judicial office holders.
Calling them competitions is not an accident – the process is competitive and can be challenging.
How many people apply?
Like any other recruitment activity there are almost always more applicants than there are vacancies. The degree to which this is true for JABS often varies on the office being recruited.
On the Courts side, competitions for Summary Sheriff and Sheriff are, statistically, the most popular. It is not uncommon for JABS to receive 10 or more applications for every vacancy. Whilst the more senior roles (Sheriff Principal and Senator of the College of Justice) are, by their nature, likely to attract fewer eligible applicants, it is still not unusual for each vacancy to attract five or more applications.
Whilst Tribunal roles have proven more challenging, depending on the Chamber being recruited for, legal tribunal applications are regularly at the ratio of three for each vacancy, whilst ordinary or specialist member competitions have historically received anywhere from 1.5 to 2 applications per vacancy. As with Court roles, senior Tribunal vacancies attract fewer applications, however JABS is boosting its social media presence and looking at ways to improve outreach in order to increase the volume of applications received for all Tribunal roles.
It's more than just numbers
The competitive nature of judicial appointments are not just driven by the number of applications received. Whether there are 10 applications for a role or just one, the standards to which applicants will be held are the same. To put it simply, you are not just competing against other applicants, you are competing against the standards and thresholds for recommendation agreed by the Board.
JABS recommends on merit. In short, this means that should the Board consider that the applications received for any particular round don’t meet the standards required, they will not make a recommendation, even if this means that a vacancy goes unfilled. Indeed, JABS have done just that in the past.
JABS recommends people to important roles. It is right then that the standard applied to applicants for those roles is high.