NEW DELHI: India is not an isolated case when it comes to a huge gender imbalance in its top court. With just three women judges, compared to 33 men judges, many developed countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland and international bodies are also grappling with the same issue.
The lower judiciary in India has a mere 27.6 per cent women constituting the current strength of 15,806 judges. Similarly, the women judges in high courts are abysmally low — around 10 per cent of its total current strength of 692 judges or just 70 judges.
Expressing concern over the gender imbalance, United Kingdom Supreme Court president Justice Lord Robert John Reed in his speech at the International Judicial Conference said, “The low proportion of women judges on our highest courts is a problem in my country, and it is one which we share with many others. Men and women, whether they are judges or not, can have different perspectives on some issues because of their different experiences of life, due not so much to differences in biology as to the different ways in which our culture treats them and expects them to behave.”
At the entry-level in law schools and the profession, the ratio of men and women is 50:50. As their career advance, the ratio of women drops with each step upward. Not just at the level of judges, even among senior advocates, women comprise only a handful.
Reed went on to state that gender imbalance exists in many other fields as well and said, “In an age when it would be ludicrous to claim that only men possess the wisdom, intelligence and experience to be senior judges, the gender imbalance in our courts can understandably affect public confidence and encourages a stereotyped view of the judiciary as old-fashioned and out of touch. It is a societal problem, and it reflects societal factors beginning in early childhood.”
“I am working with women judges to try to identify, and address, the factors which put them off applying. There appear to be several factors, but they are far from insuperable. I am planning to speak to the judges about diversity to try to address these issues and encourage more women, and members of other under-represented groups, to apply,” Reed added.