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Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill [HL]

It might be—I choose a deliberately far-fetched example—that the Lord Chancellor takes the view that the former chief justice of Malawi has compiled experience of the kind that would be transferable to a tribunal in this country, perhaps based on the Lord Chancellor’s visit to Malawi 20 years ago and/or that he dined at an Inn of Court with the person in question. That would not seem to me to be an appropriate way to consider the eligibility of the individual; and I do not imagine for a minute that the noble Baroness would think that it was either. But such a sort of ad hoc approach to nomination, however superficially reasonable it might seem, raises questions that cannot be satisfactorily answered. On the other hand, I quite accept that it would be unsuitable to put in the Bill, or even in subordinate legislation, that former chief justices of Malawi would be considered eligible. But a process that allows some iteration with others who might be thought to be expert about an individual’s background, as well as the individual, would seem to me to be a way forward.