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They say that, by attending services ‘in their official capacity, in public, during working hours, wearing their judicial robes’, judges create ‘an appearance of bias’. When issues touching on religion arise, non-Christian parties to a case will have fears that a judge may treat them less favourably, the authors say. ‘Their apprehension is real and these fears seriously undermine public confidence in justice.’

I'm not sure where the evidence is for such "fears". It would seem that at virtually every turn Christians have been singularly unsuccessful with applications to the law in recent years. So there does not seem to be even an appearance of bias, let alone any actual bias.

My own observations have always been that members of other religious faiths generally have no problem with Christian traditions etc. A devout Muslim colleague was pleased his parents sent him to a Church of England school rather than one without any faith base. Usually the only ones who are upset are fundamentalist secularists. Then they refer to the risk of other people being offended. Even my regularly-atheist friends are not offended by Christian traditions.

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