In response to Andrew Tettenborn: The Harriet Harman™ guide to exceedingly equal judgecraft, Simon Platt wrote:
I remember hearing about the O J Simpson murder trial, and being puzzled about the business of racial selection of, as I remember, jury members. The idea was, or seemed to be, that people would judge based on their racial prejudice.
It seemed terribly racist to me, but we now have the same problem in Britain. For example: ‘Judicial diversity, in terms of ethnicity, gender, disability and so on, is vitally important in holding the confidence of the public and court users’. If I were up in court (I had hitherto thought it unlikely, but it seems to be be getting less unlikely as time goes on) should I expect to be granted an Englishman as my judge? Should I complain if not?
