Diverse and inclusive high courts: a global and intersectional perspective

ABSTRACT

Critical race feminists call attention to the ways in which multiple and overlapping forms of privilege and discrimination shape individual experiences and perspectives. In this article, we argue that judiciaries cannot be fully inclusive if their composition does not reflect a society’s intersecting sources of disadvantage. We consider intersectional inclusion on high courts from a comparative perspective. Most existing practices of representation on high courts promote the inclusion of groups as if they are internally homogenous. We explore the attempts at and successes of promoting intersectional inclusion in the context of the high courts of Canada and South Africa. Although the inclusion of marginalized subgroups such as black women has not been automatic in South Africa, its progress is further along than Canada in promoting intersectional diversity on the highest court.

KEYWORDS:

• Comparative courts
• judges
• gender
• race
• intersectionality
• diversity
• Canada
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

We thank Margaret Hanson, Tabeth Masengu, Sarah Shair-Rosenfield, Nadia Brown, Valeria Sinclair-Chapman, and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2019 SPGS Kopf Conference on “Diversity in the Judiciary: Does It Matter for Democratic Inclusion, Representation, or Inequalities?” at Arizona State University. This work was funded by the National Science Foundation Grant: SES 1323949, SES 1323968 and SES 1324181. “Collaborative Research: Policy Diffusion: International Influences on Appointments to High Courts.”

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation [grant number SES 1323949, SES 1323968 and SES 1324181].