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Detailing Judicial Difference

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Abstract

In January 2004 Baroness Brenda Hale became the first woman to sit on the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords. Five years on, she has brought to her judicial role a lightness of touch that belies her increasingly significant impact on the court’s jurisprudence. Early forecasts that she would be “just a bit different” from her male companions have proved prophetic. However such assessments have stemmed primarily from a focus on her decision-making on a case-by-case basis. But what of her jurisprudence as a whole? This paper considers arguments for a more sustained and coherent methodological approach to analyses of Baroness Hale’s (and other judges’) jurisprudence as a framework through which to better understand and explore the potential of judicial difference and to better inform current debates about increasing judicial diversity in England and Wales.

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Notes

  1. Baroness Hale remains the only woman in the House of Lords and one of very few women in the appellate courts. Lady Justices Arden, Smith, and Hallet sit in the Court of Appeal alongside 34 Lord Justices (Judiciary of England and Wales, Statistics—Women judges in post as at April 2008 http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/keyfacts/statistics/women.htm. Accessed 2 December 2008).

  2. Baroness Hale was ranked sixth behind Lord Bingham, Jack Straw, Lord Phillips, Ken Macdonald QC and Sir Igor Judge.

  3. [2008] UKHL 20.

  4. Ibid at [53].

  5. See, e.g., Hale (2005), Rackley (2006, 2008), Elvin (2007) and Lister (2007), presented as part of a special stream on Baroness Hale’s jurisprudence at the Society of Legal Scholars’ Annual Conference at Durham University in September 2007; and Cobb (2008).

  6. In re Goodell, 39 Wisconsin Reports 232 (1875).

  7. See, e.g., Feenan (this issue); Kenney (2006, 2008), Palmer (2001) (US); McCormick and Job (1993), Belleau and Johnson (2005, 2008) (Canada); and more generally Schultz and Shaw (2003).

  8. On the extent to which Gilligan’s work has “come to define the feminist approach to gender and judging and hampers our ability to theorise effectively about difference”, see further Kenney (2008, p. 87) and also Rackley (2007a).

  9. See, e.g., Feenan (this issue, 2008), Malleson (2003), Kay and Sparrow (2001), Sisk et al. (1998), Davis (1993), Martin (1993), Belleau and Johnson (2005, 2008).

  10. Judiciary of England and Wales, supra n 1.

  11. In this way, studies have unsurprisingly proceeded along similar lines to those considering the jurisprudence of Justice Bertha Wilson (e.g. Halka 1996) and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (e.g. Van Sickel 2002).

  12. Parkinson v St James and Seacroft University Hospital NHS Trust [2001] QB 266.

  13. R v J [2005] 1 All ER 1; K v Secretary of State for the Home Department; Fornah v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] UKHL 46.

  14. Re D (Contact: Reasons for Refusal) [1997] 2 FLR 48; Re G (Children) (Residence: Same Sex Partner) [2006] 2 FLR 629.

  15. Stack v Dowden [2007] 2 WLR 831.

  16. Exceptions to this include Elvin’s discussion of Hatton v Sutherland [2002] EWCA Civ 76 (2007) and Alison Firth’s and Chris Wadlow’s consideration of ‘Hale’s Jurisprudence and Intellectual Property’ at the Society of Legal Scholars’ Annual Conference at Durham University in September 2007.

  17. Although neither Elvin (2007) nor Lister (2007) in their discussion of Hatton v Sutherland and Stack v Dowden respectively make explicit reference to Baroness Hale’s ‘difference’ and/or gender.

  18. Compare Elaine Martin’s discussion in this issue of the atypical background of US women federal court judges appointed by President Carter.

  19. [2006] UKHL 46 at [83].

  20. Ibid at [74].

  21. [2005] 1 All ER 1 at [69].

  22. [2001] QB 266 at [64–68], [70–71].

  23. R v Hassan [2005] UKHL 22 at [73].

  24. Interestingly, the converse is true in relation to any apparent ‘sameness’ which is typically seen as definitive confirmation of the absence of difference.

  25. On how cases are assigned to particular Law Lords, see further Hale and Hunter (2008, p. 246).

  26. See references in supra n 7.

  27. [1998] 3 WLR 1509.

  28. [2000] UKHL 49.

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks are due to Charlie Webb, Clare McGlynn, Dermot Feenan and the anonymous referees for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and to Laura Graham whose excellent research assistance during the summer of 2007 laid the foundations of this project. Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the Centre for Diversity in the Professions at Leeds Metropolitan University, the Association of Law, Culture and Humanities Annual Conference at the University of California, Berkeley, and at a Seminar on New Scholarship on the Judiciary at Birkbeck College, University of London. I am very grateful for the comments and suggestions made by members of the audience at those events. The usual caveats apply.

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    Erika Rackley

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Rackley, E. Detailing Judicial Difference. Fem Leg Stud 17, 11–26 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-009-9107-8

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