Judges in the Supreme Court

kevincaomhin

Given that the Supreme Court Judges don't normally all adjudicate each case (Article 26 excluded), how are they chosen for each case? Does the Chief Justice decide? Is it on precendence?

There would seem to be significant divergence in views amongst the judges in relation to some matters? I wonder would some decisions be different if alternative judges were chosen.

Peregrinus

The Chief Justice is in charge of organising the business of the court. Generally judges are assigned to sitting dates according to their workload and availability, and most of the time this is done before it is known what cases will be heard on what dates. (An appeal only gets assigned to a particular hearing date once it is certified by the parties as ready to go ahead, and generally appeals are listed for hearing in the order that they are certified. Thus typically a judge will know that he is rostered to sit on a given day in the future before he knows what case will be heard that day.)

There has to be some flexibility here, since a judge may not sit in appeal on a case that he has a prior involvement with, as a High Court judge or as counsel. Consequently once specific cases get assigned to dates there may have to be a little reorganisation regarding which judges will sit.

There is generally an effort, when panels of three or five judges are assembled, to make sure that the panel includes a mix of senior and less senior judges; you’re unlikely to find the three most junior judges sitting as the Supreme Court.