Professional qualifications of the judiciary in Italy, France and Germany

All three judiciaries belong to the civil law family of continental Europe and share basic traits. In this tradition judges are selected through examination at a young age and previous professional experience plays a minor role. The judicial corps is organised on a hierarchical pattern, according to which promotions are granted according to criteria that combine seniority and merit, and in which superiors have wide discretion in determining ‘merit’. Therefore, the reference group of judges – the people whose judgement is taken into account in making their decisions – is mainly internal to the corps and the higher judges play a considerable role in it. However, as a rule, political power can exert some influence in the appointment to the highest ranks. Significant changes have occurred in the past 50 years. While Germany has remained substantially faithful to the traditional model and judicial councils often play only an advisory role, the power of the executive and the judicial hierarchy has somewhat reduced in France because of the creation of the higher council of the judiciary. It is in Italy, however, where the change has been most radical. There the power of the executive has been effectively erased since all decisions regarding members of the judiciary have been entrusted to the higher council of the judiciary, two thirds of whose members are magistrates elected by colleagues. Thus the traditional power of the judicial hierarchy has been dismantled. In both France and Italy judicial associations elect all judicial members of the higher council. One of the most important consequences of this has been that the reference group of Italian judges – and, to some extent, French judges – has become increasingly horizontal, composed by colleagues and different judicial groups.