Lord Justice Leveson shoots down judicial gender quotas

Using quotas to boost the number of women and ethnic minority members of the judiciary would be the “antithesis of appointment on merit”, a senior UK judge has said.

Lord Justice Leveson, president of the Queen’s Bench Division, made the remarks in a lecture on “Justice for the 21st century” published this week.

His intervention comes in the wake of a high-profile conversation about gender equality in the judiciary, largely sparked by Lord Sumption who suggested it would take 50 years before achieving equality in appointments.

Last month, the Scottish Sentencing Council was pressed to confirm it would give “due regard to the principles of equality and diversity” when making appointments.

Lord Leveson told an audience of legal professionals that he saw quotas as “demeaning, whether to women or those from minority ethnic groups”.

He continued: “Making allowance for career breaks or for the consequences of caring responsibilities is one thing: that is entirely justifiable because the assessment of merit necessarily embraces potential.

“But creating a principle of appointment not because of merit but in order to achieve gender or ethnic balance will inevitably lead to the inference that those appointments are most decidedly not based on merit alone.”

A spokesperson for the Law Society of England and Wales said: “We believe that targets can be an important part of a firm’s approach to equality and diversity and are a route that firms may wish to explore. They can help to break up the habit that positions are always distributed in the same circles.

“But it is important that targets are not confused with quotas and firms need to be clear that, irrespective of their targets, they appoint the most suitable people for the role, in accordance with the law.”