Last Friday 15th May, the University of Limerick hosted a lecture given by Lady Brenda Hale, deputy President of the UK Supreme Court, on the topic of diversity in the Judiciary. The event was 
timely given the fact that the Department of Justice has recently announced a review of the judicial appointments process in Ireland. Lady Hale stressed the importance of embracing ‘difference’ and pointed out that the judiciary should be representative of the whole population of a country and not just one section of it. This, she noted, was crucial to the legitimacy of the judicial process. In the 2013 Council of Europe survey on judicial systems, Ireland was placed 3rd from the bottom in a table on gender diversity of judicial systems in 47 European countries. The lecture was chaired by Mr Justice John L. Murray and was well attended by judges, practitioners and academics.
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