In this essay i will examine how diverse judiciary works in a democratic and diverse society. Democracy has a strong expression on how laws interprets. Judiciary in a democratic and diverse society has bee a common and significant attention subject in England and Wales, in recent years due to need for more women judges. The Judicial appointments system was changed in 2006 in order to replace the old system of ‘tap on the shoulder’ and the ‘secret soundings’ Appointments Commission operate a clear, open and honest system based on applications and appointment, in order to increase diversity of those applying for judicial office. In 2011 , the House of Lords Constitution Committee held and inquiry into judicial appointments, which had put in more attention into the issue of judicial diversity. In 2013, the Crime and Courts …show more content…
Women as a whole are a big issue in judiciary and this matter should be work on and improved every year, but women also should be treated the same as means are in order to give everyone the same opportunities. But as a whole diverse judiciary in democratic society should be also worked not only on the basis of more women as judges, but the and advantage of England as most multicultural country in the world and give also opportunity for those who come from different historical background. In order to work well in democratic society citizens of the country should have a world in what to change and how in order to work well and make a change. Citizen makes a society in which we all live in so in order to improve the diverse judiciary the all citizen no matter of the the background should get equal opportunities for judicial roles and make the country more and fully work well democratic society as a whole not only as a
The Constrained Court model created by Gerald N. Rosenberg, proves that the courts are weak, powerless, and ineffective for change among race, class and gender ideologies.. Using Lisa Frohmann’s article, Convictability and Discordant Locales; in which she is ‘reproducing race, class and gender ideologies in Prosecutorial Decision-making’. Frohmann uses ‘discordant locales’ as a bridge to describe how prosecutors work in sexual assault cases. Rosenberg and Frohmann demonstrate that the courts are not effective unless they overcome these constraints, set in the constrained court model. According to Rosenberg and Frohmann social reform is nearly unachievable, through the district attorney and victim cross examination interview and jury assumptions. As Rosenberg specified in order to establish social reforms the following constraints; limited nature of constitutional rights lack of judicial independence, judiciary’s lack of power implantation and inability to develop appropriate policies need to be eradicated.
It is the court’s responsibility to ensure that there is fair number of juries that equally represent the people on trial. The courts should ensure that there is an equal number of people representing the community which we live in. There should be no systemically method of excluding the people of our country from protecting the rights of all people on trial
Merit –compare and contrast the role of judges ,lawyers and lay people within the English courts.
Concepts of ‘accessing’ and ‘achieving’ justice and their definitions are often debated and contested. Achieving and accessing justice may be explained through a segregation of groups. For users of the justice system, access refers to the capacity to effectively utilise the justice system, whereas for the general public access to justice refers to the capacity to obtain appropriate information to evaluate the performance of the legal system and ways in which it operates on their behalf (Martin, 2014). These definitions reveal that both users of the courts and the general public should be very much aware of barriers to its access,
Legitimacy of courts has long been an important factor in the judicial system. However, a more recent concern has been diversity. It is becoming increasingly important for the court to represent those who it serves. “The ECJ’s composition remains unreflective of the millions of black and migrant European Union citizens whom it serves”. Judgements of both the domestic courts of England and Wales along with the European Court of Justice, affect the everyday lives of all EU citizens – including those of minority and underrepresented groups. “Outcomes should not be influenced by considerations of political or financial consequences”. Independence is important as it is vital that each judge is able to decide cases solely on the evidence presented to them by the parties in court. Personal independence is always necessary to ensure that the judiciary as a whole of both the land or the community remains independent. In order for the courts to be fully independent, they must represent the diversity of the people and make decisions in accordance with the law with no other influences. With the growing influence of the government over the last century it has become increasingly important that the judiciary fulfils its responsibility to protect the public against unlawful acts of the government. What has therefore also become increasingly more important is the need for the judiciary to be completely independent from the government. The evidence suggests that the courts nowadays are not
Sommers, S. (2009, January 1). On the Obstacles to Jury Diversity. In www.thejuryepert.com. Retrieved November 29, 2014, from
On observing the District Court a number of distinctions from the Local Courts were immediately made apparent. Without going in to detail about the actual structure of the courts, they seemed to fit more closely with the traditional schema of a typical courtroom. In particular the larger courtrooms with more facilities combined with the barristers and magistrates wearing their wig and robes seemed to instantly uphold the ideology of justice. It is interesting to note how appearances can automatically provide an impression that justice will be upheld. The
The current jury system is based on an almost millennium-old principle found in the Magna Carta (1215). As a result of changes in society since, the system must be seen as potentially outdated. In other words, it may not satisfy the needs of modern society, judged by what the major stakeholders of the criminal justice system expect. Indeed, there are substantial flaws in current jury systems in terms of effectiveness. The two major concerns with jury systems are their representativeness and their levels of competence. The representativeness of juries is essential as their reason for existing is to represent the views of society. Having twelve jurors could be understood to ensure representativeness and eliminate room for bias. However, this does not remove the possibility of juries being biased towards parties. Even if the potential jurors contacted are representative in terms of gender, ethnicity, age and socioeconomic status and though jury duty is a compulsory engagement, 90% of Queenslanders opt out of it. This makes it very likely that juries will not be representative. One example is ethnic diversity. There is likely to be less ethnic diversity in courts because ethnic minorities might not have sufficient language ability or access to interpreters to be jurors. Another example is age. It is likely that retired people
Over the years, judicial diversity has been an issue of concern for Wales and England. Reform initiatives and debates for judicial diversity are critical features of various common law jurisdictions. The country faces gender and ethnicity diversity as the major dimension of inclusiveness in the judicial system. Critics have raised general
The intersection of racial dynamics with the criminal justice system is one of longstanding duration. In earlier times, courtrooms in many jurisdictions were comprised of all white decision-makers. Today, there is more diversity of leadership in the court system, but race still plays a critical role in many
The diversity issue focused on in this paper will be racial disparity in sentencing. This paper will also focus on some of the reasons why racial disparity exists within sentencing. One of the research methods used in this paper will be case studies. In society today there are a diversity of citizens, of offenders, and leaders within in the court system. However, race still plays a big role in the Criminal Justice system especially during the sentencing portion. Although racial dynamics may have changed over time, race still exerts an undeniable presence in sentencing process. This ranges from disparate traffic stops due to racial profiling to imposition of the death penalty based on the race of
There are three women on the Supreme Court, one of whom is Latina, and there is one black justice serving on the Supreme Court (Brown, 2016). This is a major issue. The United States, the “melting pot”, has an extreme lack of diversity in their court system. This is an issue that affects several aspects of society. Decisions made by judges will affect the lives of men, women, and their families. The decisions made by judges can also create law. Unlike political officials, the people do not always have the power to vote judges into their positions. Instead, the people hope that their peers with the power to affect the system choose a candidate that will fight for them. Often times, this does not happen.
The Criminal Justice System, a system the British government set up to deal with the treatment of law-breakers, has three main goals to achieve social order, these are, (1) enforcing criminal law, (2) maintaining law and order in the society, and (3) helping victims. This may seem to be a well thought of system, but like any other organisation, there are flaws, and one of the major flaws is discrimination, and the bias that stems from discrimination.
The given statement suggests that the emphasis on judicial diversity is unnecessary since there is no guarantee that a diverse judiciary would arrive at a different decision than that of a conservative judiciary. This essay attempts to argue that although there is no evidence that a diverse bench would radically change the outcome of a given case, the quality of justice will be substantially enhanced by the inclusion of a range of perspectives from which are currently not represented by the English judiciary.
For instance, if the parliament, acting on public opinion, was to make a law severely curbing the rights of some minority, the supreme court has the right to struck it down as unconstitutional, irrespective of the public support behind that law. This principle takes into account the notion that popular sentiments should not always be reflected in state policies, especially when they contradict the law. The process of judicial elections, however, is entirely based on public support as the basic legitimizing criteria for the justice system and fails to consider the fallibility of popular opinions. And, when judges are elected to their offices, the cannot work irrespective of public opinion which helped them gain their seat in the bench. Therefore, election of judges contradicts the basic principles of democracy as well as independence of the judiciary.