The fleeting benefits of appointments commissions for judicial gender equity

Abstract

Parity in gender representation on the bench is crucial if the judiciary is to reflect the population it serves. This article determines whether judicial appointments commissions, recently adopted in the UK, can increase judicial diversity on Commonwealth courts. Applying the synthetic control method to cross-national comparative data, the author finds that while the appointment of women judges increased in the first year after appointment commissions were established in the UK, any increase in the gender equity of appointments vanished soon thereafter. Not only does this result has important practical and theoretical implications for ongoing efforts to increase judicial diversity in Commonwealth countries, but it also highlights the utility of the synthetic control method for cross-national comparative political analysis.