LLM Foundation Course Judicial Process 2022 Question Paper with Solutions

For full marks, cover: what the quotation means in Cardozo's own scheme; the concept of judicial process; the sense in which it orders society; the Indian machinery that makes it possible; and the limits.

The quotation is the conclusion of Cardozo's argument, not its premise. In The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921) he identified four forces that direct a judge where the existing materials do not decide the case: logic, history, custom and the accepted standard of right conduct, which he called the method of sociology. He then said that where these conflict the last prevails, because the final cause of law is the welfare of society, and that a rule which misses its aim cannot permanently justify its existence.

The open texture of Article 21, which in seventeen words has been held to include dignity in Francis Coralie Mullin v. Administrator, Union Territory of Delhi, (1981) 1 SCC 608, livelihood in Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, (1985) 3 SCC 545, education in Unni Krishnan v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (1993) 1 SCC 645, privacy in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1, and a right against the adverse effects of climate change in M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India, decided on 21 March 2024.

Part IV, which states the social order the Constitution intends and which, though Article 37 withholds enforcement, the Court uses to give content to Part III.

The limits are structural. A court acts only when moved, decides on the record two parties place before it, cannot appropriate money, and cannot administer. It has declined to build institutions, as in Supriyo v. Union of India, decided on 17 October 2023, and it has warned itself in Divisional Manager, Aravali Golf Club v. Chander Hass, (2008) 1 SCC 683. Cardozo's own limit is the same: the judge legislates interstitially and draws from consecrated principles rather than from his own ideal.

Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan, (1997) 6 SCC 241, applied the same criterion to a legislative vacuum after the gang rape of Bhanwari Devi, a State employed social worker attacked for attempting to prevent a child marriage. The Court read the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women into Articles 14, 15, 19(1)(g) and 21 and declared its guidelines binding under Article 141 until Parliament legislated, which it did sixteen years later.

Since this paper is set for Group V, the criminal law illustrations belong here

D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal, (1997) 1 SCC 416, arose from letters about deaths in police custody and laid down eleven binding requirements on arrest and detention, including identification of the arresting officers, a memo of arrest attested by a witness and countersigned by the arrestee, information to a relative or friend, an entry in the diary, examination of injuries, a medical examination every forty eight hours, and communication to the local magistrate. Those requirements were later given statutory form.

The Indian limits are institutional. A court acts only when moved, and decides on a record two parties choose. It cannot appropriate money, levy a tax or create an administration: Divisional Manager, Aravali Golf Club v. Chander Hass, (2008) 1 SCC 683, set aside a High Court direction to create a post. It will not design a statutory regime: Supriyo v. Union of India, decided on 17 October 2023, declined to recognise same sex marriage because that required a scheme covering succession, adoption and maintenance.

And declaration is not delivery. Unni Krishnan v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (1993) 1 SCC 645, recognised a right to education which became effective only when Parliament enacted Article 21A by the Eighty sixth Amendment in 2002 and the Act of 2009 followed. The welfare of society may be the final cause of law, and a court can identify it without being able to deliver it.

For full marks, cover: the distinction between a tool and a technique; the tools; the techniques with a case each; and the limits.

A tool is a source of power. A technique is a way of using it. The question names both and separating them is what earns the higher band.

The tools

Article 32 with Article 226. The remedial power. Standing was widened in S.P. Gupta v. Union of India, 1981 Supp SCC 87, and M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, (1987) 1 SCC 395, held that Article 32 is not merely injunctive but includes the power to forge new remedies for the enforcement of fundamental rights.

Article 141. The declaratory power, which makes what the Supreme Court declares binding on all courts at once.

Article 142. The power to pass any decree or order necessary for doing complete justice, confined by Supreme Court Bar Association v. Union of India, (1998) 4 SCC 409, so that it cannot supplant express statutory provisions.

Guidelines with the force of law pending legislation. Vishaka, whose guidelines bound every workplace until 2013, and D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal, (1997) 1 SCC 416, whose requirements on arrest and detention were later given statutory form.

Continuing mandamus. The Court retains the matter and issues directions over time instead of disposing of it once. Vineet Narain v. Union of India, (1998) 1 SCC 226.

Fact finding by the Court's own appointees. Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India, (1984) 3 SCC 161, held that Article 32 prescribes no particular procedure and permitted the appointment of commissioners.

New remedies. Compensation in public law in Rudul Sah v. State of Bihar, (1983) 4 SCC 141, and Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa, (1993) 2 SCC 746; absolute liability in M.C. Mehta; the polluter pays and precautionary principles in Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum v. Union of India, (1996) 5 SCC 647.

Prospective overruling. Introduced in Golak Nath v. State of Punjab, AIR 1967 SC 1643, so that a change in the law does not unsettle transactions already closed. It is the technique that admits most openly that the Court is making law.

The techniques with their facts

Vineet Narain v. Union of India, (1998) 1 SCC 226, is the origin of continuing mandamus. The Jain hawala diaries were said to record payments to persons in high office, and the complaint was that the Central Bureau of Investigation had not pursued the matter for that reason. Instead of disposing of the petition with a single direction, the Court retained the case and issued directions from time to time until the investigation was complete, and then laid down measures for the independence of the CBI and the Central Vigilance Commission, including a fixed minimum tenure for the Director.

Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India, (1984) 3 SCC 161, is the origin of fact finding by the Court's own appointees. An organisation wrote alleging that labourers in stone quarries in Faridabad were working in bondage; the State denied it. The Court held that Article 32 does not prescribe any particular form of proceeding and appointed commissioners to inquire and report, reasoning that a bonded labourer cannot file affidavits, instruct counsel or lead evidence, so a court which insists on ordinary proof is refusing relief while appearing to apply a neutral rule.

The limits of the repertoire

Every tool and technique in the list can be deployed where no constitutional guarantee is engaged, which is why the limits belong in the same answer.

Separation of powers. Asif Hameed v. State of Jammu and Kashmir, 1989 Supp (2) SCC 364, holds that the three organs must function within their spheres and that the judiciary has no power over the sword or the purse. Divisional Manager, Aravali Golf Club v. Chander Hass, (2008) 1 SCC 683, holds that judges cannot take over the functions of another organ and that activism must not become adventurism.

Institutional competence, applied by the Court to itself in Supriyo v. Union of India, decided on 17 October 2023.

The confines of Article 142, settled in Supreme Court Bar Association v. Union of India, (1998) 4 SCC 409, which held that the power to do complete justice cannot be used to build a new edifice ignoring express statutory provisions.

Bench discipline under Union of India v. Raghubir Singh, (1989) 2 SCC 754.

For full marks, cover: the meaning and derivation; the sources; the duty structure; rajadharma and vyavahara; and the survival of the concept in the modern legal system, with the honest limits.

Dharma derives from the root dhr, to hold, bear or sustain. It means both the order that holds the world and society together and the conduct of each person by which that order is maintained. It is wider than law, wider than morality, and is not a synonym for religion. No single English word translates it, which is why the texts use it for cosmic regularity, social duty and personal virtue alike.

Its sources are given in a hierarchy by Manu and Yajnavalkya: sruti, the Vedas; smriti, the Dharmashastras of Manu, Yajnavalkya and Narada; sadachara, the practice of those learned in the Vedas and of good conduct; and atmatusti, what is approved by one's own conscience, where the earlier sources are silent. The hierarchy operates as a rule of priority.

Dharma also governs the other ends of life. It is the first of the four purusharthas, dharma, artha, kama and moksha, and the pursuit of wealth and desire is legitimate only within it. The classical treatment of commerce as lawful activity subject to an overriding standard is the ancestor of the modern doctrine of public policy.

Its survival in the modern legal system is at the level of principle and not of rule, and both halves must be stated.

At the level of principle it survives clearly. The Preamble promises justice, social, economic and political, stating an ordering aim rather than a catalogue of claims. Article 51A states fundamental duties. Article 50 directs the separation of the judiciary from the executive. The Supreme Court's motto, Yato Dharmastato Jayah, states the connection expressly. The reasoning of Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1973) 4 SCC 225, that a power conferred by an order cannot be used to destroy that order, is rajadharma in constitutional form. In S.R. Bommai v. Union of India, (1994) 3 SCC 1, secularism was explained as a positive obligation of equal respect rather than as State indifference, a conception closer to the Indian tradition than to the French.

Vyavahara, and the four purusharthas

Vyavahara is the juridical branch and is what makes dharma a legal order rather than a moral code. The texts set out the constitution of the sabha or court, the eighteen titles of litigation, the burden of proof, the classes of evidence being documents, witnesses and possession, the law of limitation, and the duties of the judge. Two of those duties are recognisably modern: the judge is to decide according to dharma and not according to the wishes of the king, which is judicial independence stated as an obligation, and the decision must be justified by reference to the recognised titles, which is a duty to give reasons.

Charitra and sadachara admitted local variation without loss of authority, so that the usages of regions, castes, guilds and families operated within dharma rather than against it. That is how one normative order governed a subcontinent of great diversity, and it is the ancestor of the modern rule that custom is a source of law if certain, reasonable and not opposed to public policy, which is how section 3(a) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, defines it.

The honest limits of the survival claim

Codification displaced the classical rules by express words, and section 4 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, is the clearest instance: any text, rule or interpretation of Hindu law, or any custom or usage, in force immediately before the commencement of the Act ceases to have effect with respect to any matter for which provision is made in the Act. The Hindu Succession Act, 1956, the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, and the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956, carry corresponding provisions.

Custom survives only on the statute's terms, and even then yields to the Constitution: Shayara Bano v. Union of India, (2017) 9 SCC 1, held talaq-e-biddat unconstitutional despite long observance.

And where the tradition conflicted with equality, the Constitution and Parliament rejected it by name. Article 15 forbids discrimination on grounds of caste; Article 17 abolishes untouchability; Article 16(4) makes reservation a constitutional obligation; and the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, made a daughter a coparcener by birth in her own right in the same manner as a son, abolished survivorship in favour of testamentary and intestate succession, and removed the doctrine of pious obligation.

For full marks, cover: the constitutional source, which is what distinguishes this question from a general note on precedent; what binds; the hierarchy; the freedom to depart and its discipline; and the constitutional consequences.

The question is about constitutional significance, so begin with the text. In England the doctrine of precedent is a rule of practice developed by the courts. In India it is constitutional, and that difference is the whole point.

Article 141 provides that the law declared by the Supreme Court shall be binding on all courts within the territory of India. Article 144 requires all authorities, civil and judicial, in the territory of India to act in aid of the Supreme Court. Article 145(3) requires a Bench of at least five judges for any case involving a substantial question of law as to the interpretation of the Constitution, which ensures that constitutional precedents are made by a Bench of appropriate weight.

Three consequences follow from the words of Article 141, and each carries marks.

The hierarchy in India follows from this. The Supreme Court binds every High Court and every subordinate court. Within a State the High Court binds all courts subordinate to it; a Full Bench binds a Division Bench and a Division Bench binds a single judge. The decision of one High Court is persuasive only in another. A larger Bench of the Supreme Court binds a smaller one, which Union of India v. Raghubir Singh, (1989) 2 SCC 754, established as a rule of discipline: a smaller Bench doubting a larger one must refer rather than decide against it. That is why the reconsiderations of 2024 went to seven judges in State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, decided on 1 August 2024, and to nine in Property Owners Association v. State of Maharashtra, decided on 5 November 2024.

The constitutional significance is fivefold.

It makes constitutional adjudication general in effect. A decision under Article 32 would otherwise bind only the parties. Article 141 converts it into a rule for the whole country, which is what makes judicial review an instrument of governance rather than of dispute settlement.

It secures uniformity across a federation. With twenty five High Courts, Article 141 is the only mechanism that keeps the meaning of the Constitution the same in every State.

The identification of the ratio, and the escapes

Article 141 binds the law declared, and identifying what was declared is the real work. No judgment states which of its propositions was necessary to the result. Wambaugh's inversion test asks whether the proposition, reversed, would have changed the outcome; if not, it is obiter. Goodhart located the ratio in the facts treated as material by the judge together with his decision on them, which is nearer to practice, because the choice of which facts are material is where the discretion lies. A later court reading an earlier case broadly extends it and reading it narrowly confines it, and neither says it has changed anything.

Four escapes from a binding precedent are recognised.

Distinguishing on a material difference in the facts, which leaves the earlier decision standing while reducing its reach.

The five consequences of the constitutional footing

It makes constitutional adjudication general in effect. A decision under Article 32 would otherwise bind only the parties; Article 141 converts it into a rule for the country, which is what makes judicial review an instrument of governance rather than of dispute settlement.

It secures uniformity across a federation. With twenty five High Courts, Article 141 is the only mechanism that keeps the meaning of the Constitution and of a central statute the same in every State.

It serves Article 14. Deciding like cases alike is what equality before the law requires of the courts themselves, so precedent is constitutionally required and not merely convenient.

It disciplines judicial law making, because a court that must reason from earlier decisions and can be departed from only by a larger Bench is visibly constrained by something other than its own preference.

And it permits controlled change, because the freedom recognised in Bengal Immunity Co. v. State of Bihar, AIR 1955 SC 661, allows a wrong constitutional turning to be corrected without an amendment, while prospective overruling from Golak Nath v. State of Punjab, AIR 1967 SC 1643, allows the correction to operate for the future only.

For full marks, cover: the development in phases, since the question says development; the activist doctrines that produced it; and a critical assessment.

Indian constitutional jurisprudence developed in four identifiable phases, and activism is the thread.

The first phase, 1950 to 1967, was textual and deferential. A.K. Gopalan v. State of Madras, AIR 1950 SC 27, read Article 21 narrowly and treated the fundamental rights as standing in separate compartments. Shankari Prasad and Sajjan Singh upheld an unlimited amending power. State of Madras v. Champakam Dorairajan, AIR 1951 SC 226, subordinated Part IV to Part III.

The third phase, 1978 to the late 1990s, was the creative phase and it is what the question calls activism. Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, (1978) 1 SCC 248, held that procedure under Article 21 must be right, just and fair and that Articles 14, 19 and 21 must be read together, which reversed Gopalan. S.P. Gupta v. Union of India, 1981 Supp SCC 87, relaxed standing. On that base the Court built the content of Article 21, dignity in Francis Coralie Mullin v. Administrator, Union Territory of Delhi, (1981) 1 SCC 608, livelihood in Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, (1985) 3 SCC 545, education in Unni Krishnan v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (1993) 1 SCC 645, and the rights of the arrested person in D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal, (1997) 1 SCC 416. It created remedies in Rudul Sah v. State of Bihar, (1983) 4 SCC 141, substantive law in M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, (1987) 1 SCC 395, rules in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan, (1997) 6 SCC 241, and supervision in Vineet Narain v. Union of India, (1998) 1 SCC 226. It also protected its own function in L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India, (1997) 3 SCC 261.

Against. The doctrines that carry the most weight have no textual anchor and their content is settled by the Court alone. The basic structure appears nowhere in Article 368, and the Court has never defined it exhaustively. Judicial law making is retrospective unless the Court chooses otherwise. And the NJAC decision is the sharpest instance of the objection, since an amendment passed by both Houses and ratified by the States was set aside on the ground that it reduced the role of judges in appointing judges.

A further criticism is about consistency rather than legitimacy. The same Court that expanded Article 21 for prisoners and pavement dwellers decided ADM Jabalpur, and the same Court that made rules for workplaces in Vishaka declined to make any for marriage in Supriyo. The line between the two is defensible, but it is drawn case by case by the institution drawing it.

The turning points, with their facts

A development answer is worth more when the four turning points are given properly.

K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1. Nine judges held privacy to be intrinsic to life and personal liberty under Article 21, adopted a structured proportionality test for any intrusion, and expressly overruled ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shukla, (1976) 2 SCC 521, in which the majority had held that during the Emergency no person could move a High Court for habeas corpus even against a wholly illegal detention, Khanna J. alone dissenting.

That overruling is the single most useful fact in a critical answer on this subject, because it is the jurisprudence correcting its own worst moment, forty one years later and by its own machinery.

The critical assessment of the development

In favour. Each step answered a demonstrated failure rather than an abstract preference: Maneka Gandhi to the consequences of Gopalan seen during the Emergency; S.P. Gupta to the inaccessibility of courts to the poor; Vishaka to a legislative vacuum that lasted a further sixteen years; L. Chandra Kumar to an attempt to remove judicial review by tribunalisation. And Parliament adopted the results rather than reversing them, in Article 21A and in the Acts of 2009, 2013 and 2023.

Conclusion. Indian constitutional jurisprudence developed from a textual and deferential beginning to a creative jurisprudence of rights, and judicial activism is the mechanism by which the change happened. Critically, the development is best defended not as a general theory of the judicial role but by the conditions under which each step was taken: a constitutional guarantee engaged, its holders unable to enforce it, and the political organs inactive. Where those conditions held, as in Hussainara Khatoon and Vishaka, the activism produced law that Parliament later adopted. Where they did not, the Court has increasingly declined, and the presence of Chander Hass, Balwant Singh Chaufal and Supriyo in the same case law as M.C. Mehta and Vishaka is what makes the development defensible rather than merely successful.

That judicial review is part of that structure was held in L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India, (1997) 3 SCC 261, where seven judges held that the power of judicial review vested in the High Courts under Article 226 and in the Supreme Court under Article 32 is an integral and essential feature forming part of the basic structure, and struck down so much of Articles 323A(2)(d) and 323B(3)(d) as excluded that jurisdiction. Tribunals may act as courts of first instance but cannot supplant the High Courts.

Bhagwati J.'s own contribution is direct. In Minerva Mills v. Union of India, (1980) 3 SCC 625, he wrote separately, and the Court struck down clauses (4) and (5) of Article 368 because a limited amending power cannot be enlarged into an unlimited one. Earlier, in Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain, 1975 Supp SCC 1, a clause purporting to place an election dispute beyond judicial scrutiny was struck down. The most recent application is Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India, (2016) 5 SCC 1, decided on 16 October 2015.

Against executive and administrative action. Illegality, meaning acting without or in excess of jurisdiction, under dictation, on irrelevant considerations, or for an improper purpose. Irrationality, a decision no reasonable authority could reach, reinforced by Article 14 which strikes at arbitrariness directly. Procedural impropriety, breach of a mandatory procedure or of natural justice, the two rules being nemo judex in causa sua and audi alteram partem. Proportionality, applied as a four part test in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1: legitimate aim, rational connection, necessity, and balance. Legitimate expectation, protecting an expectation created by settled practice or express promise, subject to overriding public interest.

The grounds, arranged by the object of review

Against legislation, three. Legislative incompetence, tested by pith and substance, with incidental encroachment not invalidating and Article 254 governing repugnancy. Breach of Part III, applying reasonable classification and the bar on arbitrariness under Article 14 after E.P. Royappa v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1974) 4 SCC 3; reasonable restriction under the relevant clause of Article 19; and procedure that is right, just and fair under Article 21 after Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, (1978) 1 SCC 248. Breach of any other constitutional limitation.

Against constitutional amendments, one. The basic structure, from Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1973) 4 SCC 225, applied in Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain, 1975 Supp SCC 1, striking down Article 329A which had placed the Prime Minister's election beyond any court, and in Minerva Mills v. Union of India, (1980) 3 SCC 625, striking down clauses (4) and (5) of Article 368 on the ground that a limited amending power cannot be converted into an unlimited one.

The objection, and the answers available

The countermajoritarian difficulty is real and should be met. The basic structure has no textual source; its content is settled by the Court; and L. Chandra Kumar means the Court has held that the power it exercises cannot be taken away by the body that conferred it. Chelameswar J. pressed exactly that in his NJAC dissent.

Three answers are available in Indian law. The power is conferred by the text in Articles 13, 32 and 226 rather than assumed. It is exercised on reasons given in public and is confined to stated grounds, which is what distinguishes adjudication from supervision. And it is correctable by amendment subject only to the basic structure, and by a larger Bench under Union of India v. Raghubir Singh, (1989) 2 SCC 754.

The historical answer is the strongest. ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shukla, (1976) 2 SCC 521, in which the majority held that during the Emergency no person had locus to move a High Court for habeas corpus even against a wholly illegal detention, Khanna J. alone dissenting and being superseded for it, is what the absence of effective review produced. It was expressly overruled in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1.

For full marks, cover: both notes at roughly equal length. The first uses the syllabus's own term and must be answered in those terms.

(a) Equivalence theories as a means of justice

The syllabus divides the relation between law and justice into three positions, and equivalence theory is the first of them.

Equivalence theories hold that justice is nothing more than the positive law of the stronger class, so that law and justice are equivalent and there is no standard of justice outside the law actually in force. Dependency theories hold that for its realisation justice depends on law, but justice is not the same as law. The third position holds that justice is independent of law altogether and that law must answer to it.

Its weaknesses are decisive for a constitutional lawyer, and three should be stated. If justice is only the positive law of the stronger, then to describe a law as unjust is a category mistake, and reform loses its vocabulary. It cannot account for the fact that legal systems themselves recognise a standard above enacted law, which is what Article 13 does when it voids a law inconsistent with Part III. And it cannot explain judicial review at all, since review requires that a valid law be capable of being wrong.

Indian law rejects it. The Preamble names justice first among the four objectives; Article 13 voids inconsistent laws; Article 39A obliges the State to secure that the legal system promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity; and Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, (1978) 1 SCC 248, requires procedure to be right, just and fair, which is a standard the law must meet rather than one it defines. Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1973) 4 SCC 225, goes furthest, holding that even a constitutional amendment must answer to values the text does not enumerate.

The position Indian law adopts is the dependency position: justice is not the same as law, but it depends on law for its realisation, which is why the Constitution enacts the standard in the Preamble and Part IV and supplies the machinery in Part III and Article 32.

Its defence against amendment is Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India, (2016) 5 SCC 1, which struck down the Ninety ninth Amendment and the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act on 16 October 2015 by four to one.

Its unresolved problems are the absence of published criteria and reasons in collegium decisions, the unsettled Memorandum of Procedure, persistent vacancies in the High Courts, and post retirement appointments. Independence from the executive has been secured; transparency and accountability have not.

The seven guarantees of independence, with their Articles

Appointment under Articles 124(2) and 217(1), where consultation was read as concurrence with primacy in the Chief Justice of India in Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India, (1993) 4 SCC 441, and the collegium was defined in Special Reference No. 1 of 1998, (1998) 7 SCC 739, as the Chief Justice with the four senior most puisne Judges for the Supreme Court and the two senior most for a High Court, opinions in writing, a recommendation made otherwise not binding.

Its defence against amendment is Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India, (2016) 5 SCC 1, decided on 16 October 2015, striking down the Ninety ninth Amendment and the NJAC Act by four to one, Chelameswar J. dissenting, on the ground that judicial primacy in appointments is an aspect of independence and therefore part of the basic structure, the specific defect being the two member veto which could defeat the concurrent opinion of all three judges on the Commission.

The unresolved problems of independence, and why they belong in the note

Independence from the executive has been secured. The goods that make independence worth having have not, and a note which omits this is an advertisement rather than an answer.

No published criteria or reasons attend collegium decisions, and the same institution that appoints decides challenges to its appointments.

The Memorandum of Procedure remains unsettled a decade after the 2015 judgment, the disagreement including a claimed national security veto over individual names.

Vacancies persist in the hundreds in the High Courts, and the Government retains a practical veto by inaction, since it can neither accept nor reject a recommendation.