Perhaps fittingly, Andrew’s appointment raises (at least for me) some academic issues.

 

The approach of appointing someone as a new judge to take effect at some date in the future,  perhaps almost a year away, strikes me as unusual.  One of my areas of research is judicial ethics.  This practice seems to raise a host of possible issues.  Could a subsequent government rescind such an appointment prior to that date without violating notions of judicial independence?  How is the appointee to conduct himself or herself over the intervening period while not yet a judge but having been identified as a judge to be?  What ethical rules apply and how would they be enforced?  What happens, for example, if the appointee makes public statements as to what he or she thinks the law is or should be? 

 

The Canadian practice, as best as I understand it, is that judicial appointments are immediate, effective when announced to the public.  The appointee is expected to take up the office immediately.

 

If anyone can direct me to any scholarship or other information about this practice of appointments that take effect in the future I would be grateful.

 

In what might be a unique cross-posting, I am copying this to the listserv for the Canadian Association for Legal Ethics.

 

Stephen

 

 

 

 

Dear Colleagues:

 

Congratulations go out to ODGer Andrew Burrows who has been named to the United Kingdom Supreme Court as of 2 June 2020 (see

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/jul/24/lord-reed-to-be-next-president-of-uk-supreme-court).

 

We will miss him in academia but will look forward to his insightful judgments in the Supreme Court!

 

Congratulations again!

 

 

Jason Neyers
Professor of Law
Faculty of Law
Western University
Law Building Rm 26
e. jneyers@uwo.ca
t. 519.661.2111 (x88435)