Diversity In The Judicial System

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Over the past few years, there has been extreme emphasis on the topic of judicial diversity and positive discrimination. Traditionally, the profession of elite judges tends to be dominated by white men, primarily from privileged social backgrounds. The diversity debate has mainly been focused upon the arrangement of the higher courts in the English Legal System. Currently there are twelve Justices of the Supreme Court, one of which is a woman. This highlights the fact that “there is a diversity shortfall – especially at the top”, as quoted by Lord Nueberger, President of the Supreme Court. This is thought to have affected the diversity of the judiciary. In the higher judiciary, women account for 14%, whilst 3% are from a black or minority ethnic …show more content…

In 2012, the Lords Constitution Committee deemed that “to increase public trust and confidence in the judiciary, there is a need to increase judicial diversity”. So in order to do so, judicial diversity should begin from the upper reaches and slowly the lower reaches will follow, therefore judicial diversity should increase. Lord Neuberger stated that “the ethnic minority representation among the senior judiciary is very low”. This is evident as current statistics shows that female judges and BME judges are predominantly concentrated in the lower echelons of the judiciary. The number of both women and BME judges starts to depreciate as you move up the judicial hierarchy. It has become quite difficult to increase judicial diversity amongst the upper benches of the legal profession, as judges have security of tenure. Hence, reforming judicial appointments will allow the judiciary to become more diverse. Positive discrimination is the most effective, yet undesirable route that is likely to increase judicial diversity significantly. As Lord Sumption declared, “because we are not prepared to recognise that selection on merit is only compatible with a move to a diverse bench over a considerable period of time, we have never thought seriously enough about the choice to be made between them”. In addition to this, positive discrimination would deter the best candidates from applying. Lady Hale opposed Lord Sumption’s claim that positive discrimination would “dilute the quality of the bench”, and said “diverse courts are better courts”. Clearly, selection on merit alone is essential to the judiciary’s legitimacy, yet “what remains entirely unclear is whether the public would still take this view if they appreciated that faster progress towards a diverse judiciary would require the partial

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