{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.021897810218978103, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 4.773835920177383, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Modes of appointment and training of judges — a common law perspective

Old Ways India, like Australia and most other jurisdictions of the common law inherited from England the old ways of going about judicial appointment and the training of judges. Unlike the countries of the civil law tradition, it rejected a career judiciary with training and promotion of the judges of the higher courts inside the ranks. Instead, judges, whether of superior or inferior courts above the magistracy, were chosen (almost without exception) from members of the practising legal profession. Indeed, they were usually chosen from an even smaller group, being advocates whose full time work was normally in advocacy before courts. For the superior courts, appointment typically came from the senior members of the cadre of advocates whose professional skills and learning had earlier been recognised. In Australia, most judges previously enjoyed appointment as Queen's Counsel. Under the old ways the judge, upon appointment, was given no formal training to ease the path from the life of an advocate to a life on the bench. Usually, after a formal welcoming ceremony, at which extravagant praise was voiced about the judge's merits, he or she (usually he) was scarcely over the pleasure of the event when the rude necessity to sit in court descended. For most, the transition from the well of the court to a seat on the bench appeared to go smoothly enough. Occasionally, the novice would be seen to leap to the feet or to cry "I object" when a question was asked or answer given that seemed objectionable. But the kind of person who was appointed to judicial office had normally had such a long experience as an advocate in the courtroom that the transmogrification was relatively painless. In most cases it turned out to be astonishingly successful. I say astonishingly because the qualities inherently required of an advocate are substantially different from those required for a judge. Truly, in mid-life and mid-career the appointee has the challenge of a virtually unaided translation to large public responsibilities for which the only real preparation was the observation, over many years, of other judges at work. The training of judges, in a formal school or college, as a prerequisite to the commencement of judicial service, or as an accompaniment to years of service, was, in the old days, out of the question. In part, the resistance flowed from the fact that this had never been the way it had been done in England which, in the judiciary (as in so many other things) adored the gifted amateur. In part,