In the 1980s
it was not unusual to go for a business lunch, down a few beers and be back at
the office for a full afternoon’s work. Whether it is age or cultural changes
but that would never happen now. If I go out for lunch it is a glass of sparking water
and if I’m in the office it is a nice cup of tea! If I went near a glass of
wine I would be found snoring at my desk by 2.30.
According
to members of a Parliamentary Committee our judges have a far stronger
constitution. New Minister of Justice, Chris Grayling, recently appeared before
them for the first time. Concerns were expressed that Old Bailey Judges would
happily down a few glasses of claret over lunch and then return to the bench –
You would
think the committee had more pressing issues, such as the attacks on Access to
Justice that I mentioned yesterday. So who cares if the judges have a tipple
over lunch so long as they do their jobs? But there is one serious issue behind
this. That is the ongoing difficulty of ensuring that our judiciary is
representative of society as a whole. The claret over lunch might give a
misleading image.
The most
recent addition to the Supreme Court, Lord Sumption reckons that it will take
50 years before we see a fully diverse bench –
We must all
hope that he is wrong. We are approaching the position where women make up
about 50% of the legal profession. There are probably more women qualifying
than men. This has been the developing picture throughout my thirty years as a solicitor.
I cannot
believe that there are not more women with the skills to reach the higher
courts. I recently had the privilege of meeting Baroness Hale of the Supreme
Court. She clearly has a great intellect but was also in touch with the real
world and had a sense of humour. Surely she is not the only woman with those
skills. In fact she isn’t. I know many judges who are perfectly in touch with
the real world.
But it is the perception that is the problem.
There are
many women lawyers out there who would be well suited to bench. The same goes
for ethnic minority groups. We must increase that representation sooner rather
than later. Should that mean positive discrimination? Possibly. But there
certainly needs to be a positive effort to recruit judges from all social
groups. Otherwise I will be 107 before we have a broad judiciary and I’d rather
not wait that long.
There is no such thing as positive discrimination. There is just discrimination with a different coice of victim. Gender and race are not merit.
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