Guarding the Guardians? Towards an Independent, Accountable and Diverse Senior Judiciary

At the heart of what Vernon Bogdanor has described as the ‘The New British Constitution’ has been the rise in the political significance of the judiciary. The explosion in judicial review of government decisions, the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law and the move to a new Supreme Court have all contributed to an extended process of increasing judicial power vis-a-vis the other limbs of state. This emergence of a more powerful judicial branch of government has been essential in providing a restraint on executive power and in the admirable protection of individual and minority rights. However, it also raises significant issues. At the core of Britain’s unwritten constitution lies the concept of legitimacy as an underpinning for the rule of law. It is a basic premise in a mature democracy that those wielding power in the political sphere must – if this power is to be fully legitimate – also be in some way accountable to and representative of those from whom that power is derived and on whose behalf it is held. This raises a pressing question in relation to the necessarily unelected judicial branch of government: ‘who guards the guardians?’ Or perhaps more accurately, how can one ‘guard the guardians’ without undermining the central principle of judicial independence? It also raises the important interconnected question of how the composition of the judiciary – in terms of its relationship to the diverse make-up of the society it serves – impacts on this concept of legitimacy. These are in no way purely legal or technical issues but ones concerning the fundamental distribution and exercise of power in our democracy in which we all have a stake. The crux to resolving them lies in establishing a constitutionally appropriate system by which judges – and particularly the senior judges – are appointed. This paper will argue that the current system for senior judicial appointments is not fit for purpose. It will argue that an appropriate process requires a rebalancing between three guiding constitutional principles for judicial appointments: independence, accountability and diversity. Establishing such a process will enhance not only the democratic legitimacy of the system as a whole but also – importantly – the authority of the judges themselves and the crucial role they perform. Specifically: The paper examines the factors contributing to the expanded constitutional role of the judiciary. It argues that, while of real societal value, the process has led to an increasingly porous boundary between legal and political decision-making and this should not be ignored. Instead, the enhanced judicial role should be placed on a more solid footing, buttressed by a constitutionally appropriate system of senior judicial appointments. The paper then examines the current appointments process. It argues that the dominant extent to which the senior judiciary are involved in the appointment of the senior judiciary is inappropriate. It is of no disrespect to the eminent and high calibre individuals involved to recognise that, in a democracy, no branch of government should be potentially self-perpetuating. Democratic legitimacy requires a degree of involvement of elected officials in the appointment of those adjudicating on the laws passed by elected officials. The significant diversity deficit in the senior judiciary is then examined. The paper argues that diversity in senior judicial appointments is not simply a desirable goal, but a fundamental constitutional principle. At the very heart of the legitimacy of an independent judiciary are its claims to be able to deliver ‘fairness’. A senior judiciary whose composition reflects an apparent lack of fairness runs the real risk of undermining its own authority. Diversity also impacts directly on the substantive delivery of justice. Judicial decisions are unavoidably influenced by judicial background and perspective, particularly in relation to the arguable points of law before the highest courts. The law of the land constitutes the collective moral code of society. A key aspect of the competence of the Supreme Court, as a collective decision-making body, is that it should be imbued with (and be able to relate to) the broad array of perspectives and experiences that contribute to that society. The institutional competence or ‘merit’ of such a court is significantly weakened if this is not the case. The paper looks to draw lessons on senior judicial appointments from an international perspective by identifying mechanisms that have been introduced in other jurisdictions to enhance judicial accountability (while preserving judicial independence) and improve judicial diversity. In particular, it argues that the debate must move on from the reductive tendency to look only as far as the Senate confirmation hearing in the USA. The paper outlines proposals to address the democratic deficit in senior judicial appointments. It recommends a move away from the present system of ad hoc appointing commissions with a predominating judicial influence towards a more enduring, expanded senior judicial appointments commission, with a balanced input from the senior judiciary, cross-party parliamentarians and lay members. This would be designed to enhance legitimacy without allowing any group a disproportionate sway. It will also argue that an appropriately designed system of postappointment parliamentary hearings should be introduced for newly appointed Supreme Court Justices (drawing on the process used in Canada). The purpose of these hearings would not be to alter or impact on the nomination but to facilitate a dialogue between parliament and the senior judiciary and allow the British public the opportunity to learn about those holding real power in their society. The paper then outlines proposals to address the diversity deficit in senior judicial appointments. In particular, it calls for a reconsideration of the approach to the concept of ‘merit’ in relation to appointments to the highest courts. It argues that the prevailing emphasis on (and exaltation of) one relentlessly individualised understanding of merit is inappropriate for appointments to the Supreme Court (as it would be for any collective court or body). Instead, the collective competence of the Court should play a central role in appointments to it, allowing for the correction of any corporate deficiencies such as the absence of particular legal specialisms or an imbalance in the membership of the court in terms of diversity of experience. With this, a candidate will – importantly – only be appointed if they are the best candidate. They will be the best candidate because they best reflect what would be most beneficial to the Court and, as a result, the society it serves

Maximum Entropy Estimation of the Galactic Bulge Morphology via the VVV Red Clump

The abundance and narrow magnitude dispersion of Red Clump (RC) stars make them a popular candidate for mapping the morphology of the bulge region of the Milky Way. Using an estimate of the RC's intrinsic luminosity function, we extracted the three-dimensional density distribution of the RC from deep photometric catalogues of the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) survey. We used maximum entropy based deconvolution to extract the spatial distribution of the bulge from Ks-band star counts. We obtained our extrapolated non-parametric model of the bulge over the inner 40 by 40 degrees squared region of the Galactic centre. Our reconstruction also naturally matches onto a parametric fit to the bulge outside the VVV region and inpaints overcrowded and high extinction regions. We found a range of bulge properties consistent with other recent investigations based on the VVV data. In particular, we estimated the bulge mass to be in the range 13 to 17 billion solar masses, the X-component to be between 18% and 25% of the bulge mass, and the bulge angle with respect to the Sun-Galactic centre line to be between 18 and 32 degrees. Studies of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) gamma-ray Galactic centre excess suggests that the excess may be traced by Galactic bulge distributed sources. We applied our deconvolved density in a template fitting analysis of this Fermi-LAT GeV excess and found an improvement in the fit compared to previous parametric based templates.Comment: 25 pages, 27 figures, minor typo correcte

ImpaCT2: learning at home and school: case studies

Strand 3 explored the nature of teaching and learning involving ICT in various settings, with a focus on the views of pupils, teachers, and parents. Working in 15 of the 60 schools selected for Strands 1 and 2, this project focused on: learning and teaching environments; learning and teaching styles; and the impact of networked technologies on the perceptions of teachers, managers, pupils and parents. ImpaCT2 was a major longitudinal study (1999-2002) involving 60 schools in England, its aims were to: identify the impact of networked technologies on the school and out-of-school environment; determine whether or not this impact affected the educational attainment of pupils aged 8 - 16 years (at Key Stages 2, 3, and 4); and provide information that would assist in the formation of national, local and school policies on the deployment of ICT

Non-Parametric Density Reconstruction of the Galactic Bulge Area using Red Clump Stars in the VVV Survey

Studies of the red clump giant population in the inner Milky Way suggest the Galactic bulge/bar has a boxy/peanut/X-shaped structure as predicted by its formation via a disc buckling instability. We used a non-parametric method of estimating the Galactic bulge morphology that is based on maximum entropy regularisation. This enabled us to extract the three-dimensional distribution of the red giant stars in the bulge from deep photometric catalogues of the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) survey. Our high-resolution reconstruction confirms the well-known boxy/peanut/X-shaped structure of the bulge. We also find spiral arm structures that extend to around three kpc in front of and behind the bulge and are on different sides of the bulge major axis. We show that the detection of these structures is robust to the uncertainties in the luminosity function.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, V4: MNRAS accepted versio

On the Existence of de Bruijn Tori with Two by Two Windows

Necessary and sucient conditions for the existence of de Bruijn Tori (or Perfect Maps) with two by two windows over any alphabet are given. This is the rst two-dimensional window size for which the existence question has been completely answered for every alphabet. The techniques used to construct these arrays utilise existing results on Perfect Factors and Perfect Multi-Factors in one and two dimensions and involve new results on Perfect Factors with `puncturing capabilities'. Finally, the existence question for two-dimensional Perfect Factors is considered and is settled for two by two windows and alphabets of prime-power size. 2

A method for constructing decodable de Bruijn sequences

In this paper we present two related methods of construction for de Bruijn sequences, both based on interleaving "smaller" de Bruijn sequences. Sequences obtained using these construction methods have the advantage that they can be "decoded" very efficiently, i.e., the position within the sequence of any particular "window" can be found very simply. Sequences with simple decoding algorithms are of considerable practical importance in position location applications