The appointment of 10 new High Court judges has been criticised after only one woman was selected.
Nine men and one woman were chosen by the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), with all 10 judges being white.
The news has prompted concern from Good Law Project, which said the decision showed a lack of progress on diversity within the senior judiciary.
Figures compare with four women among 11 new High Court judges last year, while government data shows 63% of judges at High Court level and above are white men.
Diversity under scrutiny
The JAC was established in 2006 to select judges independently of the Lord Chancellor. Its duties under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 include ‘encouraging diversity in the range of persons available for selection’.
The latest selection is the first since Lynne Berry CBE became chair of the commission.
When her appointment was announced, Ms Berry said she wanted to find the ‘best people’ by ‘looking as widely as possible for talented candidates’.
But Jo Maugham, executive director of Good Law Project, said the latest posts were a ‘slap in the face for those of us crying out for a judiciary that understands the lived realities for women and Black and Brown people in Britain today’.
‘This isn’t about the individuals,’ Maugham added, ‘some thoughtful and conscientious people have been appointed, but about a system that yearns for conformity and delivers justice.’
The comments come amid wider concerns over diversity and racial bias in the justice system.
A 2022 University of Manchester study found 95% of lawyers and judges surveyed believed racial bias played some role in the justice system’s processes or outcomes.
Some 56% said they had seen ‘one or more judges acting in a racially biased way towards a defendant’.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Justice figures show Black and Asian people received longer custodial sentences on average than white people in 2024.
Image: Dragon White Munthe/UnSplash
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