ABSTRACT
Judges obviously occupy a central role in the legal system with regard to both civil and criminal law and, for that reason, questions about the judiciary are found in most examination papers on English legal system courses. It is frequently claimed that judges represent the views of a highly limited section of society, being mainly white, middle-aged men. The point to consider, however, is whether this social placement has a deleterious effect on the decisions that the judges make. If judges are simply the mouthpieces of the law and their decisions represent no more than the automatic outcome of a strictly logical process of reasoning, then the actual social situation and background of the judge is immaterial, for the decisions are contained in the law itself. If, on the other hand, legal reasoning is not as prescriptive as outsiders generally consider it to be and judges actually have a substantial measure of discretion in the way in which they reach their decisions, then the social placement of the judiciary does become a matter to be critically analysed with regard to the decisions that they reach. Law becomes not the expression of some imminent authority, but the expression of individual and, perhaps more importantly, group prejudice.
