The body responsible for recruiting judges could widen its ‘equal merits’ approach to increase diversity, its three-year strategy document has revealed.

Where two or more candidates in a selection exercise are judged as being of equal merit, the Judicial Appointments Commission can give priority to one or more candidates from underrepresented groups through the equal merit provision introduced by the Crime and Courts Act 2013.

In 2022-23, 184 candidates progressed to the next stage of the process at the shortlisting stage and 25 candidates were recommended at the selection day stage as a result of the equal merits provision.

The approach is currently applied to women and ethnic minority candidates. However, the JAC’s 2024-2027 strategy document reveals that the commission will review its approach ‘to ascertain whether a suitable evidence base exists within the judiciary for the JAC to consider expansion to cover other protected characteristics such as disability’. Candidates with a disability represented 9% of applicants and recommendations in 2022-23 exercises.

The equal merits review is part of a series of actions to meet the commission’s strategic aim ‘to attract well-evidenced applications from the widest range of high-calibre candidates’.

Another strategic aim is to ‘ensure we are a centre of excellence in selection, applying best practice to fairly select talented individuals with the necessary skills and abilities across the entirety of judicial roles’. To achieve this, the commission will review its skills and competency framework, including the weighting of competencies, the operation of its paper sifting of applications, and the use of competency-based interviews.

The JAC will also evaluate changes to the operation of ‘statutory consultation’ following an independent review of the controversial recruitment tool.

The Court of Appeal will be looking under the bonnet of statutory consultation later this year after granting an unsuccessful applicant to the circuit bench permission to continue her long-running battle with the commission.