This study focuses on the political logic of the professionally transformed procedures of judicial selection, especially the establishment and operation of special expert advisory panels, as well as its implications on the relationship between judicial professionalization and market integration. In the past decade, there has been a worldwide trend towards the de-politicization and professionalization of the judicial appointment procedure, which has led to renewed debates on this issue. Despite of these largely normative debates, the actual motivations as well as real effects and political implications of this trend are still unclear. This study seeks to bridge this gap by presenting a comparison between the establishment and operation of the 255 TFEU advisory panel (“255 TFEU panel”) in the European Union and the Provincial Judicial Selection Commissions (“the PJSCs”) in China. Specifically, drawing from experiences and knowledge from China and the European Union, this study argues that both the EU and China have adopted similar programs of judicial professionalization in the current decade due to their common economic pursuit of market integration. Moreover, it is argued that the distinctive paradigms of market integration of the EU and China, i.e., the “courts-driven” and “rules-based” EU model, and the “state-centered” and “centrally-planned” Chinese model, have shaped the very nature, existence and political importance of the 255 TFEU panel and the PJSCs. Upon comparing the similarities and differences in the operation and functioning of the two expert bodies under the context of market integration, it’s argued that the different models of market integration of the EU and China have produced different implications for the strategical structural location and roles of the judicial power in the two systems, which in turn explains the different effects and political significance of the 255 TFEU panel and the PJSCs. By doing so, this study seeks to offer a new analytical framework for understanding the relationship of judicial professionalization to market integration, as well as present a welcome addition to the discourse on judicial professionalization and appointments.