Talent pool for finding judges 'running dry'
The growing workload puts many lawyers off, academic warns, while others with fine legal minds are never even invited onto the bench
The heavy workload of the judiciary and a restricted pool of candidates have created barriers to the recruitment of judges, lawyers and legal academics say.
While court waiting times lengthen and fall further behind official objectives, some judges are said to be using their holidays to write judgments.
And although the ranks of senior counsel - a key recruiting ground for High Court judges - numbers 89, some of the best legal minds are not being approached, the head of the University of Hong Kong's law school says.
The pool is depleted further, according to someone familiar with the recruiting process, because unlike colonial days the judiciary tries as far as possible to avoid appointing foreign judges.
Judiciary figures show that the waiting time for civil cases in the Court of First Instance has increased 30 per cent since 2009 to 231 days, well behind the target of 180 days. Over the same period the wait for criminal cases stretched from 137 days to 169 - 40 per cent behind the 120-day target.