International Standards on the Design of Judicial Appointment and Dismissal Procedures

This paper examines international standards on judicial design, focusing on judicial appointments and dismissals within the framework of the rule of law principle. The heightened attention on the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is attributed to their recent jurisprudence responding to the observed decline in the rule of law within the EU. While scholarly emphasis often centers on the impact of these standards in the European context, this paper explores their global implications and compares them with standards established by other regional courts. The structure of the paper unfolds as follows: It outlines the authoritative international framework on judicial independence. It explores the evolution of international jurisprudence on the national design of judge appointments and removals in four regional courts: the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the African Court on Human and People’s Rights, and the European Court of Justice. The comparative analysis is conducted along three dimensions: a. Scrutiny of the strategies utilized by these courts to delineate their jurisdiction over the question of national judicial appointments and dismissals. It explores how the activism of these courts in this domain is shaped by the dynamics of national constitutional politics. b. Discussion of the judicial independence doctrines of each court. c. Comparative analysis of standards governing judge appointments and dismissals through the lens of the rule of law. In conclusion, this paper argues that while soft-law international standards consistently emphasize the connection between the rule of law and judicial independence, this connection in international jurisprudence on judge appointments and removal procedures needs to be clarified. The paper contends that a comprehensive paradigm is still evolving – transcending viewing the rule of law merely as an interpretive tool and incorporating it into a cohesive framework for establishing institutional safeguards in judicial design. A comparative examination provides insights into the evolution of judicial design standards, revealing a transition from national contexts to embedded state obligations under regional frameworks for human rights protection.