Session 1: Judicial Ethics

Part 1 - Introduction to the course outline, objectives, learning outcomes and an overview of the relevant resource pages on the Federal Court website.

Part 2 - A summary presentation of a speech delivered by Chief Justice Gibbs Salika: The Construct of Impartiality and Unconscious Bias by Ms. Helen Burrows, the Federal Court’s Director, International Programs. The presentation discusses:

• What are unconscious biases?
• How are unconscious biases formed?
• Types of unconscious biases
• The challenges unconscious biases present to judicial officers
• Mitigating the impacts of unconscious bias through:
• Intuitive and deliberative decision-making
• Reflecting on decisions
• Promoting stereotype-incongruent models

We encourage self-reflection to support judicial officers to recognise and mitigate the impacts of their own unconscious biases. Some questions to inspire your reflection are found below.

Presentation

• Part 1: Introduction to the course outline, objectives, learning outcomes and an overview of the relevant resource pages on the Federal Court website.
  
• Part 2: Course Introduction and Judicial Ethics (PPSX, 754 MB) | Slide deck (PDF, 2.7 MB)

Readings

• Keynote Address: The Construct of Impartiality and Unconscious Bias (PDF, 230 KB) | (DOCX, 173 KB)
• Keynote address recordings by Chief Justice Salika:
• Challenges in the Pacific ( MP4, 433 MB, 2:52 minutes)
• True Impartiality is an aspiration ( MP4, 126 MB, 0:50 minutes)
• Use a checklist ( MP4, 173 MB, 1:09 minutes)
• Other useful practices ( MP4, 338 MB, 2:15 minutes)
• Concluding remarks on unconscious bias ( MP4, 138 MB, 0:55 minutes)
• Questions for reflection ( DOCX, 90 KB)

Additional resources:

The following are additional resources that you may find helpful in understanding how unconscious bias may impact judicial decision making:

• What is Unconscious Bias?
• Chief Justice Salika's welcome remark ( MP4, 3.5 GB, 16:42 minutes)
• The Construct of Impartiality and Unconscious Bias (PDF, 230 KB) | (DOCX, 173 KB)
• Unconscious Bias in Judicial Decision-Making Webinar
  • Presentation slides: Unconscious Bias in Judicial Decision-Making Webinar (PDF, 1.8 MB)
  • Implicit  Association Test (IAT) by Harvard University Project Implicit
  • Implicit Bias in Judicial Decision Making How It Affects Judgment and What Judges Can Do About It by Andrew J. Wistrich, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski :: SSRN
  • Extraneous factors in judicial decisions | PNAS