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.
The study also referenced the successful experiences of eight civil law countries (such as Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden) among the top ten in the World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index, which implemented structured in-court training and supervision prior to formal appointment.This proves that "systematic education" can coexist with a high level of rule of law.The report specifically emphasizes adhering to the principle of "reference rather than transplantation," fully preserving Hong Kong's common law judicial model, adversarial litigation mechanism, and judicial independence.This training path is only intended for talent development and skills preparation.The final judicial appointments are still strictly reviewed by the Judicial Personnel Recommendation Committee according to the principle of merit and constitutional procedures.Restoring efficiency and stability to the judicial system presents the best opportunity to consolidate Hong Kong's status as an international financial center and its reputation for the rule of law..
