Dr. David Kenny:

In terms of perspectives, diversity is very important because I believe judging is a dialogue between a group of people, and the assumptions and suppositions the judges have together end up influencing sentencing and everything else, including the way the people judge. While there are definitely questions for the Legislature in terms of whether a sentencing council is a good idea, the diversity of the people on the bench will inevitably alter the way people engage in issues like sentencing, because different perspectives will force the judicial dialogue to be broader and include different perspectives that previously would have been heard as irrelevant, beside the point or whatever else. When someone is a colleague and is telling you something you might not have taken very seriously, that will gradually change perceptions. Therefore, from sentencing all the way up to constitutional adjudication at the Supreme Court, diversity matters. I believe there are definitely questions in that regard.