Comments on: Opinion: Choosing our Judges

By: Mary Reid

Mary Reid — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:10:34 +0000

The time-lag is crucial here.

When I went to University in the 1960s my generation of women were up against gender quotas (ie negative discrimination, not positive).

Medical schools only offered 10% of their places to women, as indeed did the Oxbridge system which had single sex colleges. So not surprising that until recently men vastly outnumbered women as hospital consultants.

I guess similar constraints applied in the legal professions.

It would be really helpful if someone could track promotion in the professions, and indeed in business, against the opportunities available to the relevant cohort in their late teens and 20s. Maybe there are added factors which have held women back but such data should show whether things are moving in the right direction.

By: Sesenco

Sesenco — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:58:35 +0000

The appointment of judges is the very last arena where we want the disease of political correctness to rear its ugly head.

Judges should be appointed on merit and merit alone.

More women are now entering the legal profession each year than men, and there are many ethnic minority people joining it to.

They will work their way through to the judiciary in years to come.

By: MartinSGill

MartinSGill — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:47:11 +0000

@Paul #3

The last lines of the article I reference has the Judicial Appointments Commission saying “JAC appoints on merit and merit alone. We use selection processes that are open and fair to all applicants, regardless of their gender, race or background.”

The Guardian piece was very much a “shoot the messenger” piece in my view. If there aren’t any minority judges to choose from, then people shouldn’t be surprised if none are selected.

By: Asquith

Asquith — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:31:53 +0000

If there are few blacks, women (or working-class whites…) getting these jobs, we should be asking themselves why and trying to give them decent opportunities at school and university, raising aspirations when (as so often) they are too low. Any kind of “positive discrimination” is wrong not only on its own terms, but also because it contains an admission that society is biased, and tries to use two wrongs to make a right instead of putting the original wrong right.

The same with state-school pupils going to Russel Group Universities. They can’t be admitted if they don’t apply. And the class system is hardly the fault of universities, or the judicial system.

By: Letters From A Tory

Letters From A Tory — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:26:38 +0000

It’s a stupid debate, like debating the number of black MPs or female MPs. Any changes in terms of increasing diversity will only have happened in the past few years and will therefore take one or two decades to reach the very top of the legal system in terms of personnel changes.

http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com

By: Paul Griffiths

Paul Griffiths — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:58:29 +0000

“Should the selection be done blind? Remove the names, the gender, the race, the names of schools, and the names and addresses of residence, in short remove anything that might give a clue to race or gender, and then have our judges selected on merit alone?”

Couldn’t hurt.

By: sanbikinoraion

sanbikinoraion — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:49:45 +0000

As #1 – there are far more women particularly entering the legal profession now, but it will take a few decades for the situation to sort itself out.

By: Tristan Mills

Tristan Mills — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:51:56 +0000

The questions which need to be asked are:

How representative was the pool of applicants? – that would show whether there’s direct selection discrimination
Is this something which will fix itself in time as those who entered the more opened up legal profession in more recent years work their way up?