The individual voice in a collective court: Insights from judicial lectures

Cahill-O'callaghan, Rachel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7791-4578 2025. The individual voice in a collective court: Insights from judicial lectures. Tyrrell, Helene, Mallory, Conall and Cahill-O'callaghan, Rachel, eds. Extra-Judicial Communication: Perspectives and Practice, Hart Publishing, Bloomsbury,

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Abstract

In 2012, Rackley wrote ‘once we accept that who the judge is matters, then it matters who our judges are’.1 Indeed, this is central to the call for increased diversity in the UK Supreme Court (UKSC). Diversity in this context typically centres on overt diversity, but there is increasing recognition of the importance of cognitive diversity which is central to high quality decision making. Social identity theory suggests that recruitment of diverse candidate to the bench requires an institution to display both. The UKSC espouses a commitment to diversity, yet we know very little about the diversity of the individuals who populate the bench. It is characterised as a collegiate court and the practices of the Court have resulted in a consistent decline in the number of single author judgments, as such increasingly judicial individuality is slipping from view. In this context, the judicial public lecture offers one of the few opportunities to hear an individual judicial voice in this collective court. This chapter draws on a dataset of 80 public lectures delivered by the UK Supreme Court Justices in the first four years of the presidency of Lord Reed (July 2020 and January 2025). The analysis provides an opportunity to reflect on how the court displays overt diversity, through who represents the court and the audience they choose. Within the constraints of the judicial office, the content of the lectures provides an insight into the individual Justices and offers an opportunity to reflect on the individual within the institution and evidence cognitive differences including the norms, values, and experiences of the decision makers. Despite the limited overt diversity on the UKSC bench, analysis of the content of the lectures provides evidence of differences, but also the presence of dominant narratives, principles and values. It is argued that the significant turn away from the individual to focus on the collective court, may embed the dominant norms, values and experiences and in doing so, mask and silence difference and thus limit the potential for diversity on the bench.

Item Type:	Book Section
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Cardiff Law & Politics Research Institutes & Centres > Cardiff Centre of Law and Society (CCLS)
Subjects:	K Law > K Law (General)
Publisher:	Hart Publishing, Bloomsbury
Last Modified:	05 Aug 2025 15:05
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/180203

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