Judges urged to quit Garrick club in the interest of ‘impartiality’

A LEADING barrister and peer has called on judges to quit their membership of the male-only Garrick Club saying, “it’s not complicated” but is an issue of “impartiality”.

Baroness Kennedy KC, made the comments after it emerged that one of the High Court’s most senior judges had resigned from the controversial members club amid mounting pressure to quit their memberships. The Judicial Office confirmed that Sir Julian Flaux, the Chancellor of the High Court, resigned from the Garrick Club in the wake of the mounting controversy. He is the fifth senior judge who has been identified as a member and who has quit his membership.

Last month, the full membership list of the London gentlemen’s club, which was founded in 1831 and is one of the oldest of its kind in the world, was leaked, prompting renewed anger at its continued refusal to admit women.

The leaked names included many other senior figures in the judiciary, including a Supreme Court judge, five Court of Appeal judges, eight High Court judges and about 150 KCs. It also featured dozens of members of the House of Lords and 10 MPs including Cabinet ministers, as well as three bishops and 14 reverends. Around 150 men identified on the list have the title Sir and 40 have the title Lord.

As a result of the leak, first reported by The Guardian, Simon Case, the head of the Civil Service, and Richard Moore, the MI6 chief, quit their membership of the club, along with four senior judges: Sir Keith Lindblom, Nicholas Cusworth, Sir Ian Dove and Sir Nicholas Lavender. Baroness Kennedy said: “There is a misunderstanding by many about the central issue here, which is about the ways in which justice is done and seen to be done.

“If people appear before a judge they have to be confident of his/her impartiality and anything which points towards discriminatory views has to be avoided. It’s not complicated. It is not an attack on individual judges.” Sir Jonathan Cohen, the High Court judge, was removed from overseeing a case involving an alleged rape victim, amid concerns that she would be “prejudiced” by his membership of the male-only club.

The membership leak also revealed the King to be among hundreds of establishment figures in its ranks, as well as Oliver Dowden, the Deputy Prime Minister.