HAMLYN - College of Social Sciences and International Studies ...

Human Rights
"Many of the questions put to the judicial candidates were searching
and some of them were personal. But the proceedings were nothing
like the more exuberant proceedings in the Judiciary Committee of
the United States Senate. I cannot say that any of the candidates
enjoyed the experience but there is no reason to think that anyone
has been put off high judicial office by the minor ordeal of the
interview." 96
If the interview is in private, I do not think it appropriate for the
interviewing panel to explore the candidates' views on policy
issues. The questioning process would risk being haphazard and
subjective with each panel adopting its own approach. Moreover,
since the main purpose is to satisfy a perception that the
public needs to know the views of those who sit, especially
those who sit in the higher tier of the judiciary, that need would
not be met by private hearings. On the other hand, I find the
idea of public hearings distasteful, demeaning both to the
individuals being interviewed and to the judiciary as an institution.
Perhaps that feeling is old fashioned. In any event, I doubt
whether such questioning as might take place would in practice
be sufficiently searching to be very revealing of, for instance,
extreme racist, sexist or homophobic views. If it were very
searching, attempting to explore attitudes in depth, it would, I
think, be offensive—and anyway probably beyond the capabilities
of those doing the interviewing.
In my view, candidates who are otherwise qualified for
appointment to the judiciary should be rejected on the ground
that their views on social policy issues are deemed to be
unacceptable only in extreme cases, which in practice are very
unlikely ever to occur. If that is right, there is no sufficient
reason to try to explore their views. I do not believe that the
process of trying to establish the facts in regard to a candidate's
views is worth both the effort involved and the intrusiveness of
the process. In other words, I am not persuaded that the
objective of such public hearings is desirable and even if it were
desirable, I do not think that the means to achieve it would be
either effective or appropriate. Moreover, in the case of candidates
for higher judicial office they have normally been on the
96 S. Kentridge, "Bills of Rights—The South African Experiment", (1996) L.Q.R.
237 at 253.
101