SOAS Centre for Jewish Studies
EVENING LECTURE PROGRAMME
Diversity in the Judiciary, the Legal Profession and Legal Education in Israel –
An Empirical Analysis
Yael Levy-Ariel, UCL
Wednesday 10 December 2014 – 5.30pm
B104, Brunei Gallery, SOAS
The interest in judicial diversity and its possible implications is not new. Scholarly and public debate emerged parallel to developments in the field of Judicial Studies. In Israel, claims about the judiciary not being diverse enough and failing to reflect the heterogeneity of Israeli society have been expressed frequently. However, there is little coherent and robust evidence to support (or contradict) these claims. The purpose of this research is to address the key issues arising in the context of judicial diversity in Israel: what is the current composition of the Israeli judiciary in terms of the background characteristics of judges? To what extent does the judiciary represent Israeli society? Do Israeli law students and members of the legal profession have the same demographic characteristics as the judges? And how do judges, lawyers and law students in Israel perceive judicial diversity?
This is an empirical socio-legal study, which seeks to map the current judiciary in Israel, and to analyse its composition and the possible factors influencing it. It focuses on the background characteristics of presiding judges, as well as the ‘pool’ from which the future judges of Israel are likely to be appointed (i.e. legal practitioners and law students in Israel). The lecture will present the three empirical designs that were used in order to analyse the Israeli case of diversity, including the most recent findings of large-scale survey questionnaires that some 3,000 Israeli lawyers and law students participated in recently.
All Welcome
This event is free and there is no need to book
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