Appointment of Queen's Counsel in Scotland 2022

Assessment

The Lord Justice General is solely responsible for determining which of the applicants should be nominated to the First Minister for appointment by His Majesty The King. He conducts a detailed assessment of each application, including checking the reports of cases mentioned in the self-assessments and considering the references supplied. The Lord Justice General is assisted in making his assessment by the views of judges from the Court of Session and High Court of Justiciary. All judges have access to the applicants' self–assessments and are invited to express an opinion on each applicant's fitness for nomination.

There is a "scoring panel" comprising the Lord President, the Lord Justice Clerk and five other judges. Members of the scoring panel use the following scale:

A - Well fitted for Silk now and sufficiently outstanding to merit appointment this year

B - Possibly ready for Silk now but not in the front rank of applicants for appointment this year

C - Not obviously fitted for Silk at present

D - Not fitted for Silk

P - This application is premature

N - No sufficient knowledge of the applicant to express a view.

The Lord Justice General convened a meeting of the scoring panel on 15 June 2022 to consider the range of views expressed by judges. The minutes of the meeting have been made available to me. It is apparent that agreement amongst the members of the scoring panel is an important factor, albeit that their views are not binding on the Lord Justice General. All but one of the successful applicants received one or more A or B assessments from members of the scoring panel. The comments from other judges are also influential, when they align. All successful applicants received between three and fourteen positive scores. No applicant who received more than two negative comments from judges has been recommended for nomination.

The weight attached to references is difficult to assess. Only fifteen references complied with the requirement in paragraph 4.7 of the Guide to address directly the criteria for nomination. Some referees stated that they had limited knowledge or experience of the applicant's work. Nevertheless, six candidates were successful despite neither of their referees directly addressing the criteria and a further six successful candidates had only one compliant reference.