Page 86 - Judicial Diversity Update report

it is true that there are more women and BAME people on the Bench now than
then, the pace of change has been unacceptably slow and the overall numbers
of women, BAME and other ‘non-traditional’ judges remain far too low.

5.4. There therefore needs to be a public acknowledgement of the scale of the
problem and its impact on the quality of justice. There needs to be a real
commitment to change, backed up by action and practical steps rather than
words. And the steps taken need to be monitored continuously in order to ensure
and maintain progress. Unwritten rules and hidden barriers, such as the lack of
access to fractional or flexible working, or a lack of clarity as regards the
location of advertised vacant appointments, must be removed. A meaningful
judicial career path needs to be established, allowing judges in both lower
courts and tribunals to prove themselves worthy of senior appointment. To the
extent that the senior judiciary is regarded as a ‘second career’, greater attention
must be paid to the pipeline and to ensuring that recruitment to the key feeder
roles – especially Recorder and Deputy High Court Judge – facilitates diversity
rather than maintains the status quo. This commitment to change needs to
include a much greater willingness to make diverse appointments from non-
traditional pools, including appointing Court of Appeal and Supreme Court
judges from outside the serving judiciary. In this context, we are pleased by the
recent appointment of an academic barrister directly into the Supreme Court,
though we also note that the making of appointments from non-traditional pools
was said to be likely to increase diversity at the senior levels of the judiciary.
We regret that so far that has not occurred.
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5.5. This all requires the judiciary urgently to adopt diversity as a pillar of its culture,
with every judge understanding and acknowledging its importance, and making
efforts to increase inclusion. Embedding diversity into the culture means
championing a vision which recognises that in order to fairly administer and
deliver justice, the bench must better reflect the population it serves. Judges
need greater support to understand and challenge their own biases, not only in
appointments processes but also in the execution of their judicial roles. Our
judicial leaders have a critical role in setting the cultural tone and in accepting
their organisational and personal responsibility for driving diversity.

‘Merit’?

184 ‘Professor Andrew Burrows appointed to the Supreme Court’, available online at
https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-07-24-professor-andrew-burrows-appointed-supreme-court
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