Question

1) Should judges be elected or appointed? Or is a merit selection an effective compromise? 2) Should the selection system (whether by election, appointment, or merit selection) vary according to the type of judge?

Answer 1

Solution:

1:
Judges should be appointed by the government that is currently in place. This is because it helps the government in ensuring smooth operations of their activities by appointing appropriate judges at appropriate courts for effectively ensuring law and order. If the judges are selected there will be conflicts in many cases and to ensure there are no such conflicts it is necessary that the judges be appointed and not selected. In many large democracies across the world, the judges are appointed by the congress to serve for a specified tenure after which they need to be reappointed. Hence, judges should be appointed and not selected.

Merit selection can often result in conflicts because merits are relative to a lot of factors and hence there are high chances of conflicts arising because of merit selection or appointment of judges, hence, merit selection is not a viable option for a long term system and is not an effective compromise.

2:
The appointment of the judge should vary as per the type of the judge because the appointment of the judges will be based on the type of experience they have and hence appropriate judges will be appointed at appropriate courts to ensure their Experience and expertise match the requirement of the courts in which they are appointed. HEnce, the appointment of judges should be as per their type and experience in the judiciall system.