Judicial Diversity: Strategies for Change
Evening Seminar
Keynote Speaker:
Baroness Usha Prashar CBE, Chairman, Judicial Appointments Commission, United Kingdom
6 - 8pm, Thursday, 18 September 2008
Venue: The Atrium, Law Library, Distillery Building, Church Street, Dublin 7
Organised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights, University College Cork (UCC)
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights at University College Cork are organising an evening seminar on judicial diversity. The purpose of the event is to open up a discussion about the possibilities of achieving greater judicial diversity in Ireland.
This seminar is aimed at members of the judiciary, practitioners, parliamentarians, policy makers, academics, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), students and anyone interested in judicial diversity.
The event is scheduled to take place from 6-8pm on Thursday, 18 September 2008 in the Atrium, the Law Library, Distillery Building, Church Street, Dublin 7.
Baroness Usha Prahsar CBE, Chair of the United Kingdom's Judicial Appointments Commission is the keynote speaker for this event. Other speakers include: Professor Kate Malleson, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London and Dermot Feenan, School of Law, University of Ulster
If you are interested in attending this event please RSVP to Joanne Garvey, ICCL Administrator by 5pm on Monday, 15 September 2008, Tel: (01) 799 4504 or Email:
info@iccl.ie
The Speakers
Baroness Usha Prashar CBE is Chairman of the United Kingdom's Judicial Appointments Commission, a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation, a non-executive Director of ITV, Trustee of Cumberland Lodge, non-executive Director of the Cabinet Office, a Governor of Ashridge College, President of the Community Foundation Network, President of UK Council for International Student Affairs and a Patron, The Runnymede Trust.
Her previous posts include First Civil Service Commissioner, Chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society, Chancellor of De Montfort University, Executive Chairman of the Parole Board for England and Wales, Director of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, Chairman of the National Literacy Trust and Director of the Runnymede Trust. She sits in the House of Lords as a cross-bencher.
Professor Kate Malleson joined the Queens Mary School of Law in 2005. Before coming to QM she taught at the London School of Economics. Her main research interests are the judiciary, the legal system and the constitution. She is currently working with colleagues at UCL on a three-year AHRC funded project on the selection process of the international judiciary. The project will identify and analyse the criteria and procedures by which judges are nominated and elected to the international courts.
She has a particular interest in the current constitutional reforms in the UK and acted as a specialist adviser to the House of Commons Constitutional Affairs Select Committee assisting it in its review of the provisions of the Constitutional Reform Bill. She also gave oral evidence to the House of Lords select committee on the Bill and last year was asked by the House of Lords Constitution Committee to provide a written report on the effect of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 on the relationship between the judiciary, Parliament and the executive. In 2006-7 she chaired a JUSTICE committee on 'A Bill of Rights for Britain' which reviewed the problematic legal and political issues involved in assessing whether or not there is a case for creating a specific British bill of rights.
Dermot Feenan is a Lecturer in the Law School, University of Ulster. He was Co-chair of the International Research Collaborative on Gender and Judging, 2006-2007, set up under the auspices of the Law and Society Association, which hosted sessions at the Society's Annual Meeting in Baltimore, 2006, and its joint meeting in Berlin 2007 with several other socio-legal associations worldwide. He has held visiting positions at a number of universities, including: Cornell, Keele, Melbourne, Monash, Oxford, and Trinity College, Dublin.
He is currently completing a paper for publication on the topic of women's experiences as judges, as revealed in his research on Northern Ireland and as reported in the literature, in order to enhance knowledge and understanding of law, legal authority and diversity. He is also designing a research project on women judges' experiences in three common-law countries, which will lead to further publication.
