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Winner of the SLS Annual Conference Best Paper Prize 2014: Reframing the judicial diversity debate: personal values and tacit diversity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Rachel J Cahill-O'Callaghan
Rachel J Cahill-O'Callaghan*
Affiliation:
Cardiff University
*
Rachel J Cahill-O'Callaghan, Cardiff Law School, Cardiff University, Museum Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3AX, Wales. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

It has long been argued that the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, now the UK Supreme Court, is characterised by Justices who are white and male, with a public school and Oxbridge education. Despite continuous debate and reflection on the lack of diversity, by academics, government and the popular press, little has changed. These debates have centred on explicit diversity, overt characteristics that are easily codified and reflect how the judiciary is seen. Drawing on the psychological theory of decision making, this paper argues that judicial decisions are subject to tacit influences that are not limited to overt characteristics. Personal values serve as one such tacit influence on decision making. Personal values are formed by life experiences and reflect many of the characteristics identified within the explicit diversity debates. However, personal values are influenced by more than simple demographic variables. This paper uses the example of personal values to highlight the fact that despite the lack of explicit diversity, there is an element of tacit diversity in the Supreme Court, which is reflected in judicial decisions. The impact of these findings serves to extend the debates surrounding diversity, highlighting the limitation of debates centred on explicit diversity alone.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 1 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 2015

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Footnotes

*

The author was the recipient of the 2010–2011 Cardiff Law School PhD Scholarship. The author wishes to thank her PhD supervisors, Annette Morris, Jiri Priban and Richard Moorhead, for their help and advice; Alan Paterson, Roseanne Russell and Andrew Lynch for comments on an early draft; and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. This work has been presented in summary as a poster at the Socio-Legal Scholars Association Meeting 2012 and won the SLSA poster prize 2012.

References

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101. Brice Dickson identified a pattern of joint dissent between Lords Scott and Mance. Indeed, he identified an agreement between Lords Scott and Mance of 93%, which is similar to the agreement identified in this case. This would suggest that Lord Scott may have shared similar values. The Supreme Court data set selected for this study did not have sufficient data to facilitate this analysis, although this may be addressed in the future using a data set from the House of Lords. Dickson, above n 102.

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