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First point, if we take Wikipedia's proportion of 'non-caucasians' to be correct at 8% of the UK's population (I'm sure I've seen estimates at a lot higher - somewhere around 13%), one might imagine a judiciary at a similar level.
However the proportion of ethnic judges is grossly under represented, in an institution that is traditionally reactionary and slow to change.
In 2000, the level of ethnic minorities who were judges was put to parliament by Lord Woolf, during questioning of his Access to Justice papers. At that time, he found the proportion of judges from ethnic minorities to be around the 0.7% mark of the judiciary. [not got a link for this, sorry].
Although there has been an attempt to address this, the figures have not greatly increased since:
(UK gets first High Court Judge) – Sept 2004
"In England and Wales there are just nine black circuit judges amongst the 623, or 1.4%.
Ms Dobbs is the first person from a non-white ethnic minority to join the High Court. "
Progress indeed.
Further light is shed in this study by the Dept of Constitutional Affairs:
‘Increasing Diversity in the Judiciary – Oct 2004’
"Less than 7% of the judiciary are ethnic minorities"
However a closer look reveals
"In courts (as opposed to tribunals) … less than 4% of judges are from ethnic minorities "
Obviously, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the few judges that are from ethnic backgrounds are Muslim, or that the white majority of judges aren’t, but I think the principal Islamic community in the UK are formed by ethnic monorities (I can look for statistics if this is disputed)
Couple to this,
If these laws, being made in the current climate, are primarily aimed at Islamic ‘glorifiers of terrorism’, there is an unbalanced judiciary presiding on these cases. That is not to say justice isn’t being done, but that justice isn’t seen to be done and an element of confidence is therefore lost.
Especially when you read Commission for Race equality reports like this…
”Asian (11%) and black (13%) people were more likely to be arrested as a result of a stop-and-search than white people (7%)…..
The proportion of black people arrested in 2002 was on average five times higher than that of white people….
Plea-bargaining was less likely in cases where the defendant was African-Caribbean….
Proportion of ethnic minority staff in CJS agencies' workforces Courts: District judges 4, Circuit Judges 1, High Court Judges 0”
It seems that the people most likely to be those that will experience the court process as a defendant, are the least likely to have a counterpart from their own ethnicity on the tribunal of law adjudging them.
It seems empathy is a quality that has never been held highly in the judiciary. |
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