Quotas for female judges?

Quotas should be introduced to ensure at least a third of all senior judges are women, a major report has concluded.

The report, Judicial Diversity: Accelerating Change, by Geoffrey Bindman QC and Karon Monaghan QC, commissioned by the shadow Lord Chancellor Sadiq Khan, recommends that more part-time and job-share judicial posts be made available, and that part-time salaried judges be permitted to continue to practise as a lawyer. It recommends replacing the system of circuit judges with regional appointments, and allowing academics to become judges.

The report notes that the “assumption that the problem will solve itself” as younger lawyers rise through the profession is “put in doubt by the statistical evidence.”

Although the report was commissioned by the Labour Party, it will not automatically become party policy.