5.2 Feminist Legal Judgments Project
In England and Wales, in common with most other jurisdictions, the overwhelming majority of judges have historically been, and continue to be male (Ministry of Justice, 2020). To highlight the effect this has had on the law, scholars have rewritten many key common law judgments from a feminist perspective (e.g. Hunter, McGlynn and Rackley (2010)). These scholars seek to demonstrate that judges that believe in equality between women and men would have decided the cases differently, and would have given different reasons for their decisions.
In the following activity, you will have an opportunity to reflect on what you think about these issues.
Activity 4 Judicial bias
1. Watch the following video of an interview with Professor Rosemary Hunter.
2. Read the following questions and summarise your response in the text box below. Explain your thinking as clearly as you can, and, if possible, draw on examples and experiences from your own knowledge.
- To what extent do you think bias is a problem in legal reasoning?
- What, if anything, do you think could be done about it?
OpenLearn - Judicial decision making
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