Anger as Irvine refuses to appoint female law lord

Lord Chancellor reviews system of appointing QCs but is attacked for overlooking female judges in Upper House decision

The campaign for greater representation of women in the judiciary suffered a serious setback yesterday when the Government declined to appoint the first female law lord.

MPs and women's rights groups criticised the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, for overlooking several well-placed senior women judges after the replacement for the outgoing Lord Slynn of Hadley was announced in a statement by Downing Street.

The decision to give the job to Sir Robert Walker, a Court of Appeal judge, has dashed the hopes of campaigners who had expected a woman to make legal history by becoming the first female judge to sit in the House of Lords.

The MP Vera Baird, a barrister and chairman of an independent commission into the treatment of women in the criminal justice system, described the failure to appoint a woman as a "dreadful mistake". "It is immensely disappointing considering the talent of women judges available for selection," she said. A female judge in the Lords would help "stamp out rampant sexism among the judiciary", she said.

Jane Hoyal, a spokesman for the Association of Women Barristers, said she was disappointed that the Prime Minister, on the advice of the Lord Chancellor, had not taken the opportunity to promote a woman to one of the highest judicial offices. She said: "It's particularly disappointing that a Lord Chancellor who has committed himself to encouraging more women to apply for the judiciary should not have decided to appoint a woman in this case."

The two foremost female candidates to join the other 11 full-time law lords in the highest court in the country had been the Court of Appeal judges Brenda Hale and Mary Arden.

Ms Baird said: "They would have made at least as powerful a contribution as Sir Robert Walker to the jurisprudence in the House of Lords." She added: "The Lord Chancellor has sent out a strong message that he intends to make judges more representative of society. But actions speak louder than words."

Recent figures show that only six out of 100 High Court judges and only two out of 35 Court of Appeal judges are women, and all 26 judges who are eligible to sit in the House of Lords are men. Even at the lower end of the judiciary, only one in five positions on the bench is filled by a woman.

Yesterday, a spokeswoman for the Lord Chancellor's Department said Lord Irvine did not appoint judges to meet targets and that all decisions about judicial appointments were based on merit.

Lady Justice Hale may have damaged her chances of promotion last year when she said in a Reform Club lecture that the judicial appointments system was "grossly unrepresentative". Calling for a more diverse, more reflective judiciary, Lady Justice Hale said that at present it was "not only male, overwhelmingly white, but also largely the product of a limited range of educational institutions and social backgrounds".

Yesterday Ms Baird said that, with rape convictions running as low as 7.3 per cent and domestic violence cases still not being prosecuted seriously, it was vital that female judges who understood gender issues were promoted to the top courts. She pointed out that attitudes and assumptions of the higher courts were followed by the judges in the lower courts.

Recently an Old Bailey judge caused an outcry when he said it was important that the jury was told about a women's sexual past so they knew whether she was a "nun or a prostitute". In the same case, a Court of Appeal judge said it was common sense that sexual history could help tell whether a woman was likely to have consented to sex.