UK: Lady Hale calls for wider measure of judicial potential to put more women on the bench
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Lady Hale
Ways of assessing judicial potential that do not rely on experience of advocacy in the higher courts are necessary if more women are to join the bench, Lady Hale has said.
Delivering the BACFI Denning Lecture 2019 in London, the President of the UK Supreme Court said that in order to achieve gender parity in the higher courts in England and the Supreme Court, ways must be found of “enabling women who took a different career path to enter and make progress in the judiciary”.
She says: “This is beginning to happen. But there is still a suspicion that a non-traditional professional background – such as mine – is not rated as highly as the more traditional experience.”
In her speech, Lady Hale surveys the past 100 years of women in the law before looking to the future.
“My hope for the next 100 years is that the parity which women have achieved in joining the profession will lead both women and men to do whatever they can to promote the cause of women’s equality in the future – not all women are feminists but many men are and that gives us hope for the future.”
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