On 1 December 2011, Professor Dame Hazel Genn delivered this year’s Jan Grodecki School of Law Lecture. Dame Hazel is Dean of Laws, University College London. She is also a Fellow of the British Academy and Queen’s Counsel Honoris Causa. In 2008, she was elected Honorary Master of the Bench of Gray’s Inn. Her lecture was entitled “A New System of Appointing Judges: The First Five Years”. She was excellently placed to analyse this issue as she was appointed in 2006 as an Inaugural Commissioner of the Judicial Appointments Commission. Her lecture traced the background to the creation of the Judicial Appointments Commission; in particular, there were concerns about the extent to which the judiciary reflects the diversity of society. She provided theoretical reflection on whether we should expect our judges to mirror the profile of society in characteristics such as gender or ethnicity. The expectation was that the introduction of the Judicial Appointments Commission would lead to a change in the social composition of the judiciary. Through a range of interesting statistics, Dame Hazel illustrated that there had been some progress around the representation of women within senior levels of the judiciary, but there remained concern that this was not moving sufficiently fast. Notably, the presence of only one female judge within the Supreme Court compares unfavourably with other common law jurisdictions. She provided a fascinating and challenging account of the ways in which further steps might be taken to bring about change, and specifically the case for introducing positive action to select under-represented groups where candidates for the judiciary were equally qualified. This was a stimulating lecture, both in terms of its academic content and the lively and engaging delivery, which was well-received by the large audience in attendance.

Professor Jan Grodecki held the Foundation Chair of Law at Leicester and he established the School of Law with its first cohort of students in 1966. His commitment to legal education was recognised by the award of OBE in 1983 and he was President of the Society of Public Teachers of Law in 1981. Professor Grodecki passed away in 2006, but his contribution to building the School of Law at Leicester is marked each year through a public lecture to which members of his family are invited.