A new judicial appointments body has been established to make the Northern Ireland judiciary more reflective of society.
The Judicial Appointments Commission assumes powers of appointment and will be chaired by the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Brian Kerr.
The 13-member commission, comprising members of the judiciary, solicitors' and barristers' representatives as well as five lay members, will assume responsibility for recommending candidates, up to and including High Court judges.
Part of a thorough shake-up of the legal process, the commission forms part of the review of criminal justice which followed the Belfast Agreement.
It will make recommendations, based on merit, about who should be appointed judges. It cannot be overruled, although the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, can request it to review a decision.
Until now, the Lord Chancellor has been overseeing the process of appointing judges, following recommendation from the Lord Chief Justice.
Lord Falconer said in Belfast yesterday: "This is a very significant day in the administration of justice."
Describing the commission as a step in the right direction for the administration of justice, he added: "Success in the short to medium term would be confidence getting higher and people believing appointments are being made on merit."
The Court Service said the changes would put the Northern legal system to the forefront of the criminal justice review process.
Sir Brian described the new commission as a formidable team of legal and lay representatives, who will be able to investigate the gender imbalance among Northern judges.
"We must therefore address frankly the under-representation of women in some tiers of the judiciary," he said.
"If we are to eliminate disincentives, we must identify them first. That will be an important part of the work that we do - to identify disincentives that may have existed and to take measures to eliminate them."
The Lord Chief Justice said the imbalance was "a matter for concern. Clearly, there are no women members of the High Court. When I was called to the Bar in 1970 there were fewer than 70 barristers, only one of whom was a woman," Sir Brian said.
"Now there are almost 600 barristers, a third of whom are women. The growth in the numbers of women at the Bar will, I'm certain, be translated into growing representation of women on the benches."
The commissioners are: Prof John Morison, Mr Harry McConnell, Mr Justice Weatherup, Mr Raymond Mullan, Dame Joan Harbison, Mr John Gerard Gordon, Lord Justice Campbell; Mrs Sinéad Burns, lay magistrate; Mrs Fiona Bagnall, resident magistrate; Sir Brian Kerr; Mrs Ruth Laird, Mr Peter Cush, and Judge Loughran.