Oppressive levels of student debts risk reversing gains made in improving diversity among the judiciary, one of the UK’s most senior female judges has said.
Lady Justice Hallett, who sits on the court of appeal, has called for positive discrimination in awarding barristers’ training grants to students from less privileged social backgrounds.
Speaking at a seminar on female leaders in the professions, the vice-president of the appeal court’s criminal division said she would like selection procedures to focus more on the potential of judicial candidates rather than only their legal experience.
Her comments follow furore over remarks made in September by Jonathan Sumption, a supreme court judge, who claimed that any attempt to speed up the process of achieving gender equality in the senior judiciary could lead to “appalling consequences” and make male candidates feel that the cards were “stacked against them”.
Hallett, who sat as coroner in the inquest over the 7/7 bombings, said she was worried that the levels of debt students accumulate would result in only the wealthy entering the legal profession.
“I think it’s a real worry,” she said. “We were doing so well. Entry to the profession had gone to 50% [female] but I get really worried about social mobility when I look at the costs with which people leave university or further education.
“The Inns of Court used to provide scholarships to the best students … I think we have got to ask whether we should be providing scholarships [instead] to those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Otherwise we will revert to the legal profession being only for the rich and privileged.”
Hallett urged the judicial appointments commission (JAC) to exploit the so-called “tipping point” or equal merits provision more frequently, particularly in relation to appointing the senior judiciary.
The regulation under the Equality Act 2010 allows selection panels considering two candidates of equal merit to choose the one from the less well represented background. The JAC used the provision seven times in the period from October 2014 to March 2015.
Hallett said she would like the judiciary to be trained more thoroughly in “unconscious bias” to prevent male lawyers from encouraging “mini-mes” – younger male lawyers – to take the most senior appointments.
Women may not be prepared to work at weekends because of family responsibilities, she said, but that did not mean their potential to be successful judges should be overlooked.
Asked whether she expected it take to take half a century for there to be diversity on the bench, as Sumption predicted, Hallett replied: “I’m impatient. I don’t see that we need to wait. There are an awful lots of things that we can do.”
At present about 24% of judges are women.
