ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the politics of judicial appointment to the High Court of Australia. In order to give context to the politics of gender diversity and the judiciary, and the conditional and contested nature of women’s access to judicial authority, I examine the gendered deployment of the idea of ‘merit’ and the recurring practice of decision makers’ failure to frame diversity in positive ways. It is argued that the focus on merit is really one of the many ways of emphasising women’s difference, or status as ‘other’, so as to reinforce and reproduce the gendered regime, or at least to render the appointment safe for that regime. The conditions of entry (the ‘rules’) were crafted by men and for men and the ongoing commitment to an unarticulated notion of merit as the sole guiding principle in making these appointments reflects a persistent commitment to the (gendered) status quo. Similarly, the refusal to embed enhanced diversity a goal underscoring judicial appointment processes likewise reflects a commitment to the prevailing gender regime.
