Selling judgeships

As I have said before there is nothing wrong with small "p" political considerations in appointing judges.

Judges, just as surely as parliamentarians, govern and it is right and proper that their general leanings be considered before appointment.

But what about appointments made in return for political favours or even campaign contributions?

This raises a different problem.

The judicial process is so opaque that it's hard to say why any specific judge was appointed -- and that makes the appointment process ripe for abuse. In Britain judges are appointed without political input to avoid the problem but that raises other problems.

Judges must be, and must be seen to be, incorruptable. Judges, though appointed by democratic process, are not directly answerable to that process once they are appointed. They must act in strict accordance with their own view.
That means a judge who believes, say, that refugee claimants have all the rights of Canadian citizens must say so. And say so fearlessly.

But a judge appointed corruptly can never been seen as incorruptable.

But is this true even if the judge did not know about the nature of the appointment? And such is possible -- a fundraiser might get an appointment as a favour and the judge never know. Hard to say -- my instinct is if the judge was uninvolved the taint doesn't apply.