Judicial Diversity In The UK

Judiciary is the branch of the government that includes courts of law and judges. Diversity is important to the United Kingdom as it is not just a guarantor of public confidence in justice, it is also a characteristic of justice itself because it represents both fairness and equality of opportunity. However, the Lord Chief Justice has stated that
“The Judicial Appointments Commission selects candidates for judicial roles on merit irrespective of background, but there is a real need to ensure that there is a level playing field and everyone has a genuine opportunity when applying for judicial appointment.” Judicial diversity is not just the combination of various judges from different background, it is the means to achieve the goal that a bench

However, the court’s main purpose to promote judicial diversity as they believe judges from more diverse backgrounds will strengthen the legitimacy of the the judiciary. As well as the fact that the absence of judges from diverse backgrounds in the courts is too huge to ignore, especially considering it is now the 21st century. Lord Sumption has noted the sorry state of judicial diversity in UK during his lecture in the Bar Council Reform Lecture in November 2012, in England and Wales women make up 51% of the population while they only make up 23% of the judiciary the same can be said about the minority groups which make up 12% of the population but only 4% of the

However, this cannot be seen as an actual concern for the JAC, as increasing the application pool to include various other minorities will just broaden the choices and bring about an improvement in the quality of appointments. The issues of diversity are different for each court for example in the magistrate’s court there is an overrepresentation of the women candidates, thus it is the job of the JAC to examine the the needs of various courts and accordingly go about with their selection