Former top judge says judiciary should reflect the community in gender and diversity

The profile of the judiciary should reflect the community in terms of its gender make-up and diversity, a former judge of the Supreme Court has said.

Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan said she did not think there was a difference in approach between male and female judges, "and nor should there be".

“But I am all in favour of there being a very significant number of women amongst the judiciary,” she said.

She was taking part in a talk where the panel also included the former president of the UK Supreme Court, Baroness Hale, and Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada Rosalie Abella.

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“I think that for the litigants and for the public in general and for lawyers, it is very important that the judiciary is representative of both the gender divide in the community and indeed lots of other diversity issues as well,” said Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan. “But fundamentally every judge who is appointed most be somebody who is fit to be a judge.”

Baroness Hale said she was not in favour of positive discrimination or appointing someone even though they were not as good as an alternative candidate.

“I think that is not good for the profession and it is not good either for the person who has been appointed or the person who has not been appointed.”

However, she said she was in favour of measures that make life easier for members of disadvantaged groups to “prove their worth”.

Membership

Ms Justice Abella said she was “a little troubled” by the concept of positive discrimination.

“If you have a system of discrimination that means that you are arbitrarily disadvantaging someone based on their membership of a group.”

However, in Canada they had a system where they looked at addressing issues which people said constituted barriers to “qualified persons taking their positions”.

Baroness Hale said that, as is the case in the Republic with senior counsel, approximately 17 per cent of queen’s counsel are female.

However, she said, success in the legal profession tended to be thought of in terms of becoming a senior counsel, or a partner in a law firm, whereas a lot of women, after they have children, “move sideways” and continue their careers in other areas.

Many go into the government legal service, where in England and Wales 60 per cent of the lawyers were women.

Many women lawyers work with local authorities, or in such bodies as the Bank of England, or as in-house counsel in commerce, finance, and industry, where woman counsel are probably in the majority.

“What bothers me is that we tend to think of success, and we tend of think of judicial appointments, in terms of the traditional Bar and solicitors, whereas there are all these other brilliant women there who ought to be regarded as candidates for judicial appointments.”

Public service

Justice Abella, who is due to retire shortly for age reasons, said the route to judicial appointments in Canada opened up 20 years ago, with many of the candidates now picked coming from academia or the public service.

“The quality of the judiciary has been enhanced by the range of experiences that the people bring.”

The three judges were speaking at a talk held to mark 100 years since the first women joined the Bar of Ireland.

Maura McNally SC, the second women in its history to hold the position of chair of the Bar Council, said the Bar "has to mirror society", and that this was "for its own good and benefit".