Leading discrimination and equality QC Karon Monaghan has labelled the make-up of the judiciary a ‘national scandal’.

Speaking at the Royal Courts of Justice during the annual Inside Justice Week, Monaghan spoke of advances and improvements made in equality thanks to the Human Rights Act and wider legislation.

But she said improvements and continued progress should not be taken for granted.

‘The judiciary is a national scandal,’ she said. ‘It reflects the wider nation. The higher up you go, the more homogenous it appears. It is unacceptable and undemocratic.’

Under 20% of the 3,820 judges in England and Wales are women and only 4% are from black and minority ethnic (BME) groups.

In the High Court, only 17 of the 106 judges are women, while three are from a BME background.

Justice minister Bridget Prentice told the event that although progress had been made in the judiciary, the status quo is ‘simply not good enough’.

She said: ‘I am absolutely sure you’ve heard these arguments. It does not matter that we hear them again because we’re not making as much progress as we should be, which means these messages have not yet been fully embraced.’

Baroness Usha Prashar, who chairs the Judicial Appointments Commission, said that, as well as BME groups, women and people with disabilities, solicitors are also under-represented.

She called on firms ‘to encourage partners to gain the necessary experience to apply for judicial posts rather than complain about the lack of their numbers being appointed’.

In his first speech since becoming Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge suggested that older partners are reluctant to allow younger partners time off to gain experience as a part-time judge – which he said was of immense value in helping lawyers decide if a full-time role on the bench was for them – because older partners entered the profession at a time ‘when they believed a judicial career would not be available to them’.

Seperately, the MoJ has launched the ‘Barriers leading into law’ scheme, which will spend a year tracking 32 law students to help it understand the issues confronting those entering the law, whether these relate to gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or socio-economic factors.