Peers: We need more minority ethnic and female judges

Peers have called for a more diverse judiciary, stating that targets may be needed to increase the number of ethnic minority and female judges.

The House of Lords Constitution Committee said that there may be a need to set targets if the judiciary did not better reflect society within five years.

Currently, only one in 20 judges is non-white and less than a quarter are women. The committee believe this has led to a lack of public confidence in the courts system.

Statistics show that of the 11 judges in the Supreme Court, just one is female while only 4.5 per cent of High Court judges are from a BME background.

Maintaining that judges should be picked on merit, the peers called on the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief justice to encourage diversity, identifying candidates and applying equality laws to senior court appointments.

The committee said,

"It is necessary for judges to understand the wide array of concerns and experiences of those appearing before them. A more diverse judiciary can bring different perspectives to bear on the development of the law and to the concept of justice itself."

"Judges are independent of Parliament and the executive, but they should not stand apart from the society in which they adjudicate. The public must have confidence in the judges who make the decisions which affect their day-to-day lives."

Committee chairwoman Baroness Jay said it was "vital that the public have confidence in our judiciary".

"One aspect of ensuring that confidence is a more diverse judiciary that more fully reflects the wider population," she said.

Image: Dame Linda Dobbs DBE, first non-white person to be appointed to the senior judiciary of England and Wales