Cultural diversity and court practice in Europe

• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
• the Robert Schuman Centre Seminar Series

Join Patrícia Jerónimo as she presents her research on how courts navigate cultural diversity, judicial biases, and equality in legal decision-making.

The role of the judiciary in adjudicating cultural claims has been under scrutiny since the rise of the ‘cultural defence’ in academic and political debates in the 1980s. Domestic courts across Europe and North America have become sites of cultural encounters and legal tensions, yet judges often remain unfamiliar with cultural analysis tools and hesitant to depart from formal equality principles to accommodate diversity.

While courts are seen as better suited than legislators to provide case-by-case accommodations for ethno-racial, religious, and linguistic minorities. At the same time, there is growing awareness of structural racism impacting the justice system and concern about judges’ subconscious biases and lack of skills in intercultural communication. This presentation will explore how these issues are perceived by judicial actors in Portugal and how they are reflected in diversity-related case law, drawing on findings from a multidisciplinary research project conducted between 2018 and 2022 (InclusiveCourts).