Immigration Appeals: Selection of Tribunal Members (Hansard, 16 December 1998)

§ The Lord Chancellor

All the above posts, apart from lay members of the Immigration Appeals Tribunal, whose posts are only part-time, may be occupied on a full-time or part-time basis. All posts are filled by open advertised competition apart from a few occasions when I have directly seconded serving Circuit Judges to the Tribunal. Candidates for full-time positions must have served in a part time capacity for long enough to establish competence and suitability for full-time appointment. There are no statutory qualifications for158WA appointment as a part-time Immigration Adjudicator. However, in practice, I will only consider persons who hold a seven-year general qualification within the meaning of Section 71 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (i.e. a right of audience in any class of proceedings in any part of the Supreme Court or in all proceedings in the county courts or Magistrates' courts) who are advocates or solicitors in Scotland, or barristers or solicitors in Northern Ireland, of not less than seven years' standing. Part-time Chairmen of the Immigration Appeals Tribunal are normally recruited from the ranks of part-time Immigration Adjudicators.

Lay members of the Tribunal require no specific qualifications as such.

All applicants are required to submit the names of three persons able to comment on their suitability for appointment, together with application forms designed to seek out information which will enable them to be assessed against the published selection criteria. Apart from the statutory requirement mentioned above, these relate to age, health, character, legal knowledge and experience, skills and abilities, and personal qualities. Candidates must also be able to satisfy the physical requirements of the office. Selected applicants are interviewed by a three-member panel consisting of a member of the relevant judiciary, one of my senior officials and a lay person. In reaching their decisions, the panel would take into account the views as to suitability provided by the consultees, as well as the strength of the competition on that particular occasion. The recommendations of the panel would be submitted to me, but the decision on whom to appoint rests entirely with me.

All judiciary appointed to the IAA are subject to an initial induction programme that includes a two-day residential training course before they are permitted to sit. Special Adjudicators are then required to attend a further two-day residential course before they can be assigned to handle asylum appeals. There have been several recent appointments of new Adjudicators and Tribunal Chairmen who have previously sat in other jurisdictions (e.g. Recorders and Circuit Judges) who have had an abbreviated special/adjudicator course. In addition to the standard induction programme, each hearing centre has at least one formal training day per year, there is a two-day residential judicial conference every two years, as well as other occasional ad hoc training activities, as needs demand, such as those required by new legislation, or prompted by new precedents in case law. The ongoing performance/training of judiciary is monitored by the Chief Adjudicator and the President of the Tribunal, without seeking to impinge on the core principles that protect and govern the independence of the judiciary.

The total amount spent on judicial training during 1997–98 was £189,463.38 and the anticipated spend for this financial year (1998–99) is £146,000. The higher level spent in the previous year was in part due to additional funding being provided for the purchase of judicial benchbooks, and generic IT training for adjudicators.