Do you become a judge by being appointed after a long career, or by passing an examination and training for the job?

AnalysisAny system that gives a person the power to decide cases has to answer one question first: how do you know they can do it? There are only two honest answers. You can select for demonstrated capability, which means waiting until there is a record to examine. Or you can select for capacity and then build the capability yourself, which means testing early and training at length. Every judicial entry route is a version of one of those two answers.

France recruits judges and prosecutors together by competitive examination. The main route is open to holders of "un diplôme de niveau bac +4 ou équivalent"; a second route is open to public servants "exerçant depuis au moins quatre ans"; a third requires "au moins quatre années" of professional activity in a legal, administrative, economic or social field, or a doctorate in law. Those who succeed hold the status of auditeur de justice and train for 31 months, across Bordeaux and Paris.

The same country runs a separate mid-career route. It requires a "diplôme de niveau Bac + 4" and that the candidate be "âgé de moins de 57 ans au 1er janvier de l’année du concours", with experience thresholds that differ by prior profession — five years for lawyers, seven for other qualified private-sector professionals, five for greffiers, three for attachés de justice. Its training runs 12 months rather than 31.

England and Wales appoints instead. Selection runs through the Judicial Appointments Commission, which requires a candidate to be "a citizen of the UK, Republic of Ireland or another Commonwealth country at the time of application", to hold a relevant legal qualification, and to have post-qualification experience — "Seven years of post-qualification experience (PQE) for Upper Tribunal, Circuit Judge and more senior positions" and "Five years of post-qualification experience (PQE) for most other legal roles". The Commission is "required by statute to select only persons of ‘good character’".

Selection itself is "a 3-stage selection process": an application with a self-assessment and nominated independent assessors; a shortlisting stage which may use a name-blind sift or an online test; and a selection day using role play and interview. The Selection and Character Committee "considers each candidate in order of merit and recommends candidates for appointment" to the Lady Chief Justice, the Senior President of Tribunals or the Lord Chancellor. The process "varies and can take over a year".

A career judiciary is entered, not reached

Where judging is a career, the examination is the entrance to it. There is no expectation of a prior career at the bar, because the school supplies what practice would otherwise have supplied.

An appointed judiciary is reached, not entered

Where judges are appointed from practice, the qualifying period is the training. Nobody teaches the appointee to be a lawyer, because the appointment is evidence that somebody already did.

Both models test character, by different instruments

One does it through a statutory good-character condition assessed at appointment. The other does it through a long training in which a trainee is observed continuously. The question is the same; the moment it is asked is not.

Merit is asserted in both, and measured differently

Recommending candidates "in order of merit" presumes a comparable record to rank. A competitive examination produces a rank directly. Neither method escapes the difficulty of saying what merit in a judge consists of.

And neither model is the beginner’s version

The examination route is sometimes read as an easier entrance because it comes earlier. It is followed by 31 months of training; the appointment route asks for five to seven years of practice. Both are long. They spend the time in different places.

• Common belief: Judges are always former practising lawyers who were promoted.

  In practice: In one of the two systems researched, the main route in is a competitive examination open to holders of a four-year degree, followed by 31 months of training. There is no promotion, because there was no prior practice to be promoted from.

• Common belief: Becoming a judge is the top of a legal career everywhere.

  In practice: Where a career judiciary exists it is an entry rather than a summit, and a person may hold judicial office from early in a working life. The idea of judging as a capstone belongs to the appointment model, not to both.

• Common belief: An examination route means less preparation than an appointment route.

  In practice: The examination is followed by 31 months of paid training in one system. The appointment route requires five to seven years of post-qualification experience in the other. Both are substantial; they place the time before or after entry.

• Common belief: Judicial selection is a job interview.

  In practice: The published English and Welsh process runs three stages, may use a name-blind sift, uses role play as well as interview, and can take over a year before a committee recommends candidates in order of merit to a senior office-holder.

• Common belief: Any qualified lawyer with enough years can be considered.

  In practice: The published condition requires at least 20% of each year to have been spent on law-related activity since qualifying, alongside a citizenship condition and a statutory good-character requirement. Elapsed time on its own does not satisfy it.

• Common belief: This page can tell you how to become a judge where you live.

  In practice: It cannot. Two systems were researched, and the routes described belong to them. Nothing here establishes what any third country requires, and no route is recommended.

Two systems, as they publish themselves.

• Competitive examination, then 31 months of training as an auditeur de justice — France, initial route.
• A four-year degree for the main route; four years of public service or professional activity for the others — France.
• A separate mid-career route with an upper age condition and 12 months of training — France.
• Appointment from legal practice, with five or seven years of post-qualification experience — England and Wales.
• A three-stage selection that can take over a year, ending in a recommendation in order of merit — England and Wales.
• Not researched: every other country, and appointments above the High Court.

AnalysisHow judges are chosen is an independence question before it is a careers question. A judiciary trained by a state school and a judiciary drawn from an independent profession are exposed to different risks: the first to the charge that it is formed by the executive that funds it, the second to the charge that it reproduces whoever the profession already contained. Publishing the criteria is what allows either charge to be examined rather than merely asserted.

• Two systems were researched — France and England and Wales. How any third country appoints or recruits judges was NOT RESEARCHED, and both models below have variants this page does not describe.
• Success rates, application numbers, and the actual composition of either judiciary were NOT RESEARCHED and are not described.
• The English and Welsh material covers appointments made through the Judicial Appointments Commission up to and including the High Court. Appointments above that level were NOT RESEARCHED.
• What either selection process is like to go through, and how candidates prepare for it, are outside this page entirely. No preparation route, course or provider is named or implied.

Related: judges and prosecutors: one career or two, what qualifying as a lawyer requires, and why judicial independence matters.