“Nusrat Choudhury is representative of plaintiffs who bring civil rights cases. She tends to sue the government, advocating against national security policies and practices. And that is quite different in terms of how she has worked with the law and has worked to ensure that the law provides equal protection to everyone.”
One-sided view
Government lawyers and former lawyers for large companies are highly overrepresented in the judiciary, she explained, which has caused significant concern within the legal profession that the judiciary has a one-sided view of the efficacy of law or the lack thereof.
According to Aziz, although judges matter significantly, they are just one part of a complex system comprised of multiple stakeholders that include jurors, lawyers and government officials.
She believes that having judges with “diverse professional experiences and diverse personal experiences that are interconnected to their identities is important at a macro level”.
‘When you have judges that have homogenous experiences personally and professionally, you will structurally produce a judiciary that is lopsided in favour of those experiences and perspectives’
– Sahar Aziz, law professor
“So with Nusrat Choudhury, I think she counterbalances the trend because she’s a Muslim woman and because she worked most of her career in civil societies specifically in the ACLU,” she said, highlighting Choudhury’s representation of people affected by post 9/11 laws, policies and practices.
Aziz argued, however, that one judge cannot change the entire system, especially because the power of a judge is limited.
“Ultimately you want a judge who is objective and impartial, but again informed to understand that what may exist on paper isn’t always reflected in the reality, particularly of those groups in society that are less powerful, that are often scapegoated, that are stigmatised,” she said.
“And that certainly has been the case for Muslims, Arabs and South Asians for the last 20 years.”
— Read the full article published on February 7, 2022 here.
