Deeds not words: women in the judiciary

Sep 03, 2018

Written By Emma Finamore

This year marks a hundred years since women won the right to vote. We take a look at how they have fared in another key part of public life: the judiciary.

The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 abolished the previous ban on women serving as lawyers, judges or magistrates, but it took decades for female judges to actually get their hands on a gavel. PA In 1962, Elizabeth Lane became the first female County Court Judge and, in 1965, the first female High Court judge. Rose Heilbron was appointed as the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey on in 1972. Her career included many other female "firsts": she was the first woman to win a scholarship to Gray's Inn, one of the first two women to be appointed King's Counsel in England, the first woman to lead in a murder case, the first woman recorder, the first woman judge to sit at the Old Bailey, and the first woman Treasurer of Gray's Inn. She was also the second woman to be appointed a High Court judge, after Elizabeth Lane.

Elizabeth Butler-Sloss became the first female Lord Justice of Appeal in 1998, and in 1999 the first president of the Family Division of the High Court of Justice., and a life peer. Among other notable cases, she chaired the Cleveland child abuse inquiry.

Brenda Hale is a British judge and the current President of the Supreme Court of the UK. She thinks increasing numbers of female judges is vital for the judiciary and for the country’s justice system. “Diversity of background and experience enriches the law,” she says, in Deeds Not Words: The Story of Women’s Rights, Then and Now, by Helen Pankhurst. PA “Women lead different lives from men, largely because we have visibly different bodies from men…by and large the interaction between our own sense of being a woman and the outside world’s perception of us as women leads to a different set of everyday and lifetime experiences…They will not always make a difference but sometimes they will and should.”

The industry as a whole agrees with Hale, and a Judicial Diversity Committee was set up in 2013 – chaired by Lady Justice Hallett – to explore ways of increasing diversity in the judiciary, including improving gender representation. It has been strongly supported by judges from all backgrounds across the courts and tribunals in England and Wales, and has worked with the Judicial Appointments Commission, universities and professional bodies to host evening outreach events.

The primary purpose of these events is to attract suitably qualified lawyers from groups currently under-represented in the judiciary and to enable them to explore the possibility of a future judicial career. The events provide a panel of varied speakers and an opportunity to meet serving judges. They may sow the seed of wanting to join the judiciary years ahead, when they are ready to apply.

However, progress is slow. Last year the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary released diversity statistics for the industry last year. It reported that in the period from 1 April 2014 to 1 April 2017, the percentage of female judges had increased from 18% to 24% in the Court of Appeal; 18% to 22% in the High Court and 24% to 28% in the courts judiciary.

In the four years leading up to the report, the proportion of female judges in the tribunals increased from 43% to 45%. 28% (890) of court judges and 45% (806) of tribunal judges were female, which was consistent with 2016. Nine out of 38 Court of Appeal Judges were female (24%). This is comparable to the figures from last year, where 8 out of 39 (21%) were female. PA Around half of all court judges (49%) and just under two-thirds of tribunal judges (62%) aged under 40 were female. 14 out of 66 Deputy High Court Judges (22%) were women. More than half of magistrates were female (54% – 8,712).

Many other countries fare better than the UK in this regard. A report by the Council of Europe in 2016 showed that the systems with the lowest percentage of women among professional judges were Azerbaijan (11%), Armenia (23%), Northern Ireland (23%), Scotland (23%), England and Wales (30%) and Ireland (33%). The Europe-wide average was 51%. PA By comparison, the European court of human rights in Strasbourg has a relatively good record on gender diversity compared with most international courts. Currently, 17 out of the 47 ECHR judges are women (36%).

A hundred years since women won the right to vote, there is still plenty of work to be done to ensure they have equal opportunity to pursue a career in the judiciary, and to ensure citizens have real justice in the courts.

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