The House of Lords Constitution Committee has published its report on Judicial Appointments. It concludes that a more diverse judiciary would improve public trust and confidence in the justice system. It makes a number of references to the written evidence submitted by Equal Justices Initiative (and to EJI members’ individual submissions).
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U7mfGH1Nttg%3Frel%3D0
The Committee set out a number of recommendations to improve diversity. These include:
- The Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice should have a duty to encourage diversity amongst the judiciary as the Judicial Appointments Committee (JAC) does currently.
- While appointment based on merit is vital and should continue, the Committee supports the application of section 159 of the Equalities Act 2010 to judicial appointments. This would allow the desire to encourage diversity to be a relevant factor where two candidates are found to be of equal merit.
- Opportunities for flexible working and the taking of career breaks within the judiciary should be made more widely available to encourage applications from women and others with caring responsibilities.
- There needs to be a greater commitment on the part of the Government, the judiciary and the legal professions to encourage applications for the judiciary from lawyers other than barristers. Being a good barrister is not necessarily the same thing as being a good judge.
- While the Committee does not currently support the introduction of targets for the number of BAME and women judges, it says this should be looked at again in five years if significant progress has not been made.
Read the full report and see a video of Baroness Jay discussing judicial appointments.