Following the recent Census of Judges published by the Ministry of Justice, the continued lack of diversity within court has been highlighted. The “white, middle-class, middle-aged, male” courtrooms do not reflect the diverse communities they serve, according to Lady Hale, who stated that we should be ashamed of the inequality within the Supreme Courts.
The inequality issue was found to be particularly prominent within the Midlands’ courts, in which the judicial system still has half the way to go to reflect its local population. Within the courtroom, the people of Asian minority make up 6% of those working for the Law, but within the local community, they represent 9%. Within the Midlands judicial system, there are only two black judges, despite black people making up 3% of the population. This shows the apparent disparity between the diversity of the judicial court system and the diversity of the local people.
There is also a lack of diversity in age. As Lady Hale stated, the majority of the Supreme Court is held by those that are middle-aged. However, within the judicial system of the Midlands, 199 of the 453 judges were aged 60 years and over, the system in this area, therefore, weighted towards the older generation. This has meant that the younger judges are underrepresented within the courtroom. Of these 453 judges, only 28 are under 40, the youth making up only 6% of the whole judicial system. There clearly needs to be an increase in the younger generation to provide any chance of age equality. Each age group needs to be correctly represented for the system to be regarded as diverse.
There has, however, also been a positive development with regards to diversity. The number of female judges has increased since 2018, and now half of the judges under 50 are women. The Lord Chief Justice is “encouraged to see the number of women judges has increased”, and recently, Dame Victoria Sharp succeeded Brian Leveson as the President of the Queen’s Bench Division, both of which show the positive steps towards closing the sex gap. However, the women still only make up 30% of the courtroom population, and whilst there has been an improvement, this is still far below the boundary for male-female equality.
Each of these indicates a significant disparity between the courtroom statistics and the population demographic that the system serves. This means that those within the judicial system are not representative of their communities, and therefore, don’t reflect the diversity. This is an issue that, by 2019, we should have resolved, but remains prominent.
By Grace Lea
