Mr. Liam Herrick:

Mr. Condon might have a view on behalf of the Government in that regard. We note that in the proposed approach, the Government would retain absolute discretion to appoint judges who are not recommended by this process at all. In that context, very wide discretion is being retained. We can only assume that is for constitutional reasons. It should be possible, however, to establish conventions and norms whereby the vast majority of appointments, if not all, are done through the process. If that is the case, it should be a rigorous system of selection purely based on merit. That is our understanding of the approach being taken. In our view, there is clearly no constitutional difficulty with the proposed scheme because the Government is retaining absolute discretion to appoint judges as it sees fit.