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The next item on our agenda is judicial appointments. This is another consultation exercise. It was deferred from the previous meeting because the Executive consultation paper was not published in time for that meeting. Every member should have received a copy of that consultation paper now—I can see a number of copies around the place. It was published on 20 April and the closing date for consultation is 31 July. If we are to input to that consultation process, we can do so, in my view, only by appointing a reporter, as we did with the stalking and harassment consultation exercise. The committee's timetable and work programme are such that it will be impossible to deal with it at committee level in any other way. I seek the agreement of the committee to our proceeding on that basis.
I am not entirely sure about this, but I suppose that, technically, I should declare an interest, as I am eligible for judicial appointment in a somewhat theoretical way. You might be right about timing, but how we appoint judges at every level is an important issue and a matter of huge public interest. Is there no possibility that we could deal with it once the consultation answers are in and make our views known in the light of that?
That will be in the middle of the summer recess, Gordon. The consultation process ends on 31 July and we should input to that process within a reasonable time. The Executive is probably fairly relaxed, but I do not think that it would be relaxed to the extent of delaying matters by a month and a half or two months, which is how long it would take. The likelihood of our having a meeting between now and the summer recess at which we could reasonably deal with this is remote and getting ever more remote as we speak because of the work that is planned.
I thought that our input would be more important and meaningful if we made a statement, rather than simply had a reporter deal with it as another consultee. Like the minister, we would consider all the submissions and set out our position in the light of those.
There is nothing to preclude our doing that as well. At issue is whether we want to be part of the consultation process, as we tried during the consultation on freedom of information. At some point we may want to take a broader view on how we deal with consultation documents. We need to decide whether the Justice and Home Affairs Committee should automatically assume that it will make a submission in any consultation process or whether it can run a parallel consideration of its own, which is effectively what Gordon Jackson is proposing.
My fear is that on this issue—it may be true of every issue—all we will get from a reporter is an individual view, rather than a committee view. This is an issue on which individuals take very different views, depending on where they are coming from.
The reporter's job is to dig up the various issues, questions and answers and to bring them back to the committee for it to decide on. We decided what would be included in the letter that we submitted as part of the freedom of information consultation process. Ultimately, the committee decides whether it wants to accept or reject the reporter's information. I cannot see any alternative to the approach that we have agreed previously, short of not doing anything until we return after the summer recess, which I would regard as unsatisfactory. Our timetable is such that it will be difficult to find time even for a reporter to report back to the committee on this issue.
That is agreed. Michael Matheson can discuss with the clerk how best to proceed, given what is contained in the appointments document.
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