Judicial diversity and the challenge of sexuality: some preliminary findings

Moran, Leslie (2006) Judicial diversity and the challenge of sexuality: some preliminary findings. Sydney Law Review 28 (4), pp. 565-598. ISSN 0082-0512.

Abstract

Judicial diversity debates and reform initiatives have been a feature of several common law jurisdictions over many years. To date two strands of diversity, gender and ethnicity have dominated these debates. General arguments used to rationalise judicial diversity, the need for judicial appointments procedures to conform with the demands of equality and equal opportunity laws, that a diverse judiciary has a greater capacity to be sensitive to the needs and experiences of the diverse users of the legal system, that the judiciary be reflective of the diversity of the nation that it serves, that a diverse judiciary is a more accountable judiciary in complex western legal democracies, necessitates the incorporation of sexuality as a dimension of judicial diversity. But sexuality is and remains notable by its absence. The first objective of this article is to gather together and offer a critical analysis of existing data on the sexual composition of the judiciary. My second objective is to introduce and offer an analysis of new data that I have generated as part of an ongoing study of sexual diversity and the judiciary. The data has been generated by way of a series of interviews with lesbians and gay men who are members of the judiciary and legal professionals in various jurisdictions, in particular in Australia, England and Wales and South Africa. Within the confines of this article I limit my analysis of this data to the ways in which members of the judiciary experience and manage the boundary between invisibility and visibility.

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