More to do to improve diversity, says new head of UK’s highest court
THE NEW head of the UK’s highest court has acknowledged that there is further work to do to improve diversity in the judiciary after she became the first woman to hold the post.
Yorkshire-born Lady Hale was sworn in as President of the Supreme Court on Monday, succeeding Lord Neuberger as the UK’s most senior judge.
The 72-year-old’s appointment is seen as an important milestone in attempts to ensure that the judiciary, and its higher ranks in particular, more closely resembles society.
Figures show that, as of April this year, 28 per cent of court judges in England and Wales were female, while fewer than a tenth (seven per cent) were black, Asian or minority ethnic.
Lady Hale, raised in Richmond, said: “That’s a problem for the judiciary as a whole, all the many dimensions of diversity. Gender of course is the most apparent in the sense that women are half the human race and a very large number of people studying law and going into the legal profession are then disproportionately not there in the higher ranks of the judiciary. But that’s improving dramatically.
“As far as ethnic diversity is concerned, of course the way to improve the diversity at the top is to improve it at the bottom and then try and progress the careers of the good people who join the judiciary in the lower ranks.”