Dr. David Kenny:

There is a risk of letting judges appoint themselves. Dr. Carroll MacNeill has mentioned this several times. It is necessary to have people who are engaged with the process. There has been some research in terms of the lay membership of the board in Scotland. There is a separate disciplinary process which involves lay participation. It has been perceived as a good thing, but there has also been questions on how the lay members deal with disciplinary issues. There has been a problem with lay participants not understanding certain things about the day-to-day role of lawyers and so on. If there was a majority of lay members - or lay members only - on the committee, there may be a lack of expertise. My own view is that in trying to change a situation where - as currently - judges are in the majority of the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board and they are backed up by representatives of the two legal professions, it would be better to have more lay participation. We also need to bore further into the question of who the lay representatives would be.