The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has adopted guidelines for the selection of judges for the ECHR. They were adopted following recommendations from the Interlaken High Level Conference on the future of the Court and the Izmir High Level Conference on the future of the Court, held in 2010 and 2011 respectively. At the Interlaken High Level Conference States Parties and the Council of Europe were called upon to “ensure, if necessary by improving the transparency and quality of the selection procedure at both national and European levels, full satisfaction of the Convention’s criteria for office as a judge of the Court”
The guidelines address the national procedures of member states for selecting judges. As noted in the ECHR blog, the Committee of Ministers followed the Parliamentary Assembly with regard to whether the submitted lists of three judges should include one member of each sex. The guidelines state that, “Lists of candidates should as a general rule contain at least one candidate of each sex, unless the sex of the candidates on the list is under-represented on the Court (under 40% of judges) or if exceptional circumstances exist to derogate from this rule”. The guidelines also deal with the criteria for the establishment of lists of candidates, the procedure for eliciting applications, the procedure for drawing up the recommended lists of candidates and finalisation of the lists of candidates.
Click here to read the guidelines.
Click here to read a blog post from the ECHR blog.