Reforms fail to increase women in the judiciary

The system for appointing judges is failing women, who continue to be under-represented among all ranks of the judiciary, research indicates.

The findings increase pressure on the Government to set up an independent judicial appointments commission to select both judges and QCs.

Latest figures show that only six out of 100 High Court judges and only two out of 35 Court of Appeal judges are women, while 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 are filled by women.

Kate Malleson, who will announce her findings at a meeting in the House of Commons today, claims the failure of women to break into the judiciary has led to a sense of disillusionment among potential candidates.

Her study shows that there has been little increase in the number of women judges and QCs since the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, asked her to investigate the problem shortly after Labour won the 1997 election.

That report, published two years ago, found that many senior lawyers and some judges believed the appointments system was based on patronage and that the Lord Chancellor appointed from an "elite group of chambers".

Ms Malleson, a lecturer at the London School of Economics, says that despite the introduction of reforms since she reported to the Lord Chancellor, women are faring no better. "The rate of change is not increasing," she said. "The number of women on the bench is still too low and shows the system is still a merit-based class system which favours those who come from elite chambers." Ms Malleson said the lack of promotion at the top exposed flaws in the Lord Chancellor's argument that women would eventually "trickle up" to the senior ranks.

Lord Irvine claims the absence of senior women judges and low proportion of women QCs reflects the conditions in the legal profession 20 years ago when fewer women were available for selection. But Ms Malleson said: "Women, who may be just as likely to be appointed if they apply, are simply not applying."

She said this was a particularly acute problem with QCs, only 8 per cent of whom are women. She also said a decision by the Lord Chancellor to freeze some judicial appointments had aggravated the low representation because the pool of potential candidates was not being refreshed by new applicants.

A spokesman for Lord Irvine said: "The Lord Chancellor has expressed on many occasions his concerns that women (and ethnic minorities) are under-represented in the judiciary. This is in the most part due to the relatively low proportion of women in the pool of lawyers (with around 20 years post-qualification experience) who typically apply for judicial posts."

He added: "To address the current imbalance, the Lord Chancellor has made a number of changes to the judicial appointments process, designed to improve equality of opportunity for applicants to the judiciary (these include the Peach review and the Campbell Commission)."

But he stressed: "The department is still considering further reforms."