Black Barristers’ Committee founding chair Keir Monteith stressed the importance of allyship
Keir Monteith, the founding chair of the UK Criminal Bar Association’s new Black Barristers’ Committee, has flagged the lack of black judges in the UK Supreme Court and Court of Appeal.
The Law Society Gazette reported that during the committee’s official launch event on Friday November 9, Monteith called for allyship, stressing its importance to raising awareness regarding racial bias in the system.
“How on earth, with all the black excellence in this room and going back over time, do we not have a single black Court of Appeal judge? How is it, with all the black excellence, we do not have even a single black Supreme Court judge? How is it, after all the diversity and inclusion strategies…all of the training, all of the reform to the Judicial Appointments Commission, that the percentage of Crown court judges stubbornly stays at one percent?” Monteith asked during his speech at the launch event, a snippet of which was published by the Gazette.
Last year, statistics from the UK justice ministry revealed that the number of black judges has stagnated at one percent since 2015. Monteith indicated that the diversity gap could be traced to an institutional and structural issue.
The Black Barristers’ Committee, he said, needed support.
“It needs allyship, people in other parts of the system to speak up and support us. An example is [immediate CBA past president] Riel Karmy-Jones KC, who encouraged and supported this committee and our important, public launch. But it cannot be all on us,” Monteith said in a statement published by the Gazette.
He urged chambers and law firms to examine recruitment, retention, and work allocation policies. He also encouraged judges and advocates to flag racial bias in judgments and court submissions.
Shami Chakrabarti, who used to be shadow attorney general of England and Wales, added that having a diverse perspective at the top court level was vital to establishing public trust and legitimacy.
“In many crucial cases, that perspective – whether a woman’s perspective or black person’s perspective – is crucial,” Chakrabarti told the attendees at the event, at which she was a guest speaker, in a statement published by the Gazette.
She said the lack of people of color in the UK senior judiciary today was “not good enough.”
“We have never had enough people of colour in the senior judiciary. We’ve never had one in the highest court. I never would have believed that to be the case in 2026. For us to be in 2026 and never have had a law lord or Supreme Court judge of colour – it is not good enough for me,” Chakrabarti said in a statement published by the Gazette.
The Black Barristers’ Committee launch event in central London was attended by 350 people, including Philippa Whipple, lead diversity and inclusion judge, and Judicial Appointments Commission representatives.
