The lord chief justice's latest update on judicial diversity progress does not correspond with what the data shows, the president of the Law Society has said.
Lord Burnett of Maldon told the House of Lords constitution committee this month that progress ‘has actually been better than people might think’.
He said part of the reason why he knows work to improve gender diversity has been successful is because ‘nobody is really having a go at me about that’. Neither is he ‘being taken to task in private discussions’ about the number of judges being recruited from south Asian backgrounds. However, he acknowledged that the number of black judges remains a concern.
Writing in the letters page of today's digital edition of the Gazette, Society president I. Stephanie Boyce, pointed out that just 1% of judges in England and Wales are black – a figure that has not changed since 2014. The number of Asian judges has increased from 3% to 5%, but ‘there is much room for further progress’.
Boyce said the pool of candidates is becoming increasingly diverse, but this is not translating into appointments. She repeated the Society’s call to end ‘statutory consultation’ – a controversial selection process that the Judicial Appointments Commission is required to use.
Boyce said statutory consultation is potentially detrimental to applicants from non-traditional backgrounds, who are disproportionately likely to be unknown to the statutory consultee. Lack of transparency in decision-making is also a problem.
The commission has said it will drop statutory consultation in certain exercises after a review flagged up inconsistencies in the process. The next of judicial diversity statistics is due to be published in July.
This article is now closed for comment.
6 Readers' comments