Selection and Appointment of US Judges
外交学院国际法系 张明华
Maxwell, International Law Department，China Foreign affairs University
Oct. 2008
Generally speaking, there are three ways to choose judges in the United States.
According to Article III of the US constitution, most federal judges are nominated by the President of the US but should be consented by the Senate. Those judges include judges of the Supreme Court, judges of the courts appeals and the district courts and judges of the Court of International trade. And in some states of US, local judges are appointed through a similar way. That is, judges are nominated by local administrative leaders and consented by legislatures of each state.
Election is another way to appoint judges. Article III of the Constitution only prescribes methods for federal system. States have their rights to choose whether to adopt the federal mode. So some states establish different systems to choose their judges. They appoint judges through election. Judges are elected by voters, which is very similar to political elections.
Some judges are constituted by their superior courts, including Bankruptcy judges and Magistrate judges. The former ones are appointed by the courts of appeals and the latter ones are appoint by the judges of district court.
People often make comparison among those means. It looks like that it is more reasonable and democratic to appoint judges through election than through political nomination. But I don’t agree on that point. But I’m not saying that I support the political nomination way, either. I think both of them have their own shortcomings and strong points. In my opinion, the most important point is how to insure judges’ integrity and independence and how to avoid judicial corruption. In this regard, US have been doing very well. It set up an effective system to guarantee the judicial impartiality. The Code of Code for United States Judges provides a set of ethical principles and guidelines which is guidance for judges to keep themselves clean-fingered, politic-independent, and diligent. Besides, US established other assistant systems to ensure judges’ integrity and independence. All the systems include Thus, although US federal judges are politically nominated, they are able to cast off influences for the administrative department.
We can draw a conclusion from the above that no mater how judges are come into being, the most important thing is to establish an efficient system to supervise them and maintain their integrity and independence, which is the key to achieve the judicial impartiality.
