Page 85 - Judicial Diversity Update report

V. OUTSTANDING KEY ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Culture and leadership

5.1. In the original report, the Working Party noted the importance of leadership and
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culture in increasing diversity. Upon reflection, we think that this important
factor requires greater emphasis and elaboration.

5.2. All cross-sectoral research shows that leadership at both the most senior levels
and the ‘upper middle’ levels (i.e. those making the individual decisions about
who gets ahead and how), is foundational in framing and changing the
organisational culture needed to drive diversity. And this cultural change needs
to be embedded. It is critical that those in leadership positions prioritise and
commit to the cultural change necessary to transform the demographics of our
judiciary in a meaningful and sustainable way. At present, judicial diversity is
still seen as tangential to quality in judging rather than fundamental to it. This
must change if there is to be substantial and sustained improvement in the
diversity of our judiciary. As noted in our earlier report, the Working Party
believes that diversity is integral, not contradictory or secondary, to merit.
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5.3. At the senior levels of the judiciary there needs, first, to be genuine recognition
and understanding of why a lack of diversity is problematic, the scale of the
problem and of its severity. The Working Party is deeply concerned by efforts
to explain away homogeneity, or to suggest that ‘things have never been better’
and by the continued but misplaced insistence that significant change is just
around the corner. Peter Taylor made the same assurances as Lord Chief Justice
in 1992, when giving the Dimbleby Lecture: “The present imbalance between
male and female, white and black, in the judiciary is obvious… I have no doubt
that the balance will be redressed in the next few years… Within 5 years I will
expect to see a substantial number of appointments from both these groups.
This is not just a pious hope, it will be monitored.” Almost 30 years later, while

182 See para 2.16; para 3.37(c)
183 JUSTICE, Increasing Judicial Diversity (2017), available online at https://justice.org.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2017/04/JUSTICE-Increasing-judicial-diversity-report-2017-web.pdf, p.10. See also
C. Thomas, Judicial Diversity in the UK and Other Jurisdictions, A Review of Research, Policies and
Practices, The Commission for Judicial Appointments, November 2005, p.55, available online at
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/judicial-institute/sites/judicial-
institute/files/judicial_diversity_in_the_uk_and_other_jurisdictions.pdf; J Resnick, “On the Bias:
Feminist Reconsiderations of the Aspirations of Our Judges” Southern California Law Review 19877
(1988) 61.
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