The Hong Kong Institute for Policy Studies officially released a research report entitled "Establishing a Professional Judge System Suitable for Hong Kong as a Talent Development Ladder for Judicial Personnel" to the judiciary and the public. The report proposes a core strategy of "targeted expansion and systematic training" to pave a new path for the sustainable development of Hong Kong's judicial talent pool. Currently, the judiciary's civil case processing timeline is largely up to standard, but the pressure on criminal case processing time is significant; for example, the waiting time for criminal cases in the District Court has reached 337 days. Therefore, reforms should precisely focus on strengthening criminal procedure and trial management capabilities. Addressing the bottlenecks of the traditional "practitioner-to-professional" model, which is limited by salary gaps in the private market and time lags in talent identification, the report recommends, while retaining the main channel of recruiting senior barristers and lawyers laterally, establishing supplementary pre-training and support pathways (such as judicial assistants and tribunal support) to systematically identify and cultivate outstanding legal talent at an early stage.
研究亦參考了世界正義工程（WJP）法治指數前十名中八個大陸法系國家（如丹麥、挪威、芬蘭、瑞典等）在正式任命前實行結構化法院內培訓與督導的成功經驗，證明「系統化培育」完全能與高水平法治並存。報告特別強調恪守「參考而非移植」原則，百分之百保留香港普通法的裁判模式、對抗式訴訟機制與司法獨立。這條培訓路徑僅作為人才儲備與能力準備，最終的司法任命依然由司法人員推薦委員會按擇優原則及憲制程序嚴格把關。讓司法運作重回高效穩健，正正是鞏固香港國際金融中心地位與法治聲譽的最佳契機.
