Equal Representation of Women in Judiciary

Context: Recently, the Supreme Court commemorated the first ever 'International Day of Women Judges'.
About International Day of Women Judges

• The event was organised pursuant to the resolution presented by Qatar before the United Nations General Assembly, whereby member states were called upon to celebrate the full and equal participation of women at all levels of the judiciary on the 10th of March every year, as it was resolved to be proclaimed as the 'International Day of Women Judges.'
• Redressing gender inequalities is also at the core of UNODC's Strategy for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, and is a goal shared by the Global Programme for the Implementation of the Doha Declaration, as it works to promote a culture of lawfulness around the world, providing education and training and supporting the full participation of women in every professional sphere.
• Women’s representation in the judiciary is key to ensuring that courts represent their citizens, address their concerns and hand down sound judgments.
• By their mere presence, women judges enhance the legitimacy of courts, sending a powerful signal that they are open and accessible to those who seek recourse to justice.
• The entry of women judges into spaces from which they had historically been excluded has been a positive step in the direction of judiciaries being perceived as being more transparent, inclusive, and representative of the people whose lives they affect.
• By marking the day, we will reaffirm our commitment to develop and implement appropriate and effective national strategies and plans for the advancement of women in judicial justice systems and institutions at the leadership, managerial and other levels.

Status of Women in Judiciary

• In high courts, the percentage of women judges is a mere 11.5%, while in the Supreme Court there are four sitting women judges out of 33 in office, the Chief Justice of India said.
• On the issue of under-representation of women in the judiciary, he said women on average constitute only around 30% of the judges in the lower judiciary.
• In 15 states, for which data was available, the authors find that 36.5% of the civil judges recruited over the 10 years were women in 15 states.
• Recruitment of civil judges is based on an exam which allows fresh law graduates to apply. Encouragingly, the recruitment of women has increased over time in most states. In 2007, only 27.6% of women were recruited but this increased to 49.2% by 2017.

Among district judges, who were recruited from state Bar Councils via exams, only 12% were women in the 13 states analysed. The representation was especially low in Jharkhand (1 woman out of 30 district judge appointments), Uttar Pradesh (9/139) and Gujarat (4/57).

• Out of 1.7 million advocates registered, only 15% are women.
• Only 2% of the elected representatives in the State Bar Councils are women.
• There is no woman member in the Bar Council of India.

Benefits of Inclusion of Women in Judiciary

• Specifically, to ensuring that the legal system is developed with all of society in mind, it also inspires the next generation of female judges and motivates them to achieve their goals.
• Only through the active participation of women, on equal terms with men, at all levels of decision-making, we’ll be able to achieve sustainable development, peace and democracy.
• It is essential to further the principles of justice and equality envisaged in the Preamble of our Constitution.
• Gender equality being 5th of the 17 sustainable development goals set out by the United Nations in the year 2015 to be achieved by 2030, it is all the more important to enhance women's representation.
• The importance of equal representation of women in judiciary lies in the fact that it balances the scale of justice which is crucial to dispense complete justice.
• Referring to the goddess of justice as a moral force in the judicial system it has been elucidated that the significance of her attributes, were reflective of the qualities that a woman judge possesses.
• Virtues like honesty, patience, credence, impartiality, independence are the traits which are essential for effectively dispensing justice, are also qualities, largely, imbibed by women.
• The democracy demands equal representation in its strongest pillar.
• Adjudication is enhanced by the presence of women who bring to the fore considerations that would not have been taken into account in their absence; the scope of the discussion is hence enlarged, possibly preventing ill-considered or improper decisions.
• By elucidating how laws and rulings can be based on gender stereotypes, or how they might have a different impact on women and men, a gender perspective enhances the fairness of adjudication, which ultimately benefits both men and women. All judges should strive to bring a gender perspective to adjudication.

Challenges Faced by Women in Judiciary

• There are various barriers that women face in the legal profession, including bias, lack of judicial infrastructure, gender stereotype, etc.
• The continued prevalence of certain attitudes about the role of women in society – is a problem a woman faces regardless of the type of employment.
• Another issue is the bias that women face, whether from their colleagues or litigants. This bias affects not just women advocates, but also those on the bench.
• Judicial infrastructure, or the lack of it, is another barrier to women in the profession, small courtrooms which are crowded and cramped, absence of restrooms, and childcare facilities are all barriers. Nearly 22% of courts in the country did not have washroom facilities.

Clients’ preference for male advocates.

• A major barrier to women’s recruitment as district judges are the eligibility criteria to take the entrance exams. Lawyers need to have seven years of continuous legal practice and be in the age bracket of 35-45. This is a disadvantage for women as many are married by this age.
• Further, the long and inflexible work hours in law, combined with familial responsibilities, force many women to drop out of practice and they fail to meet the requirement of continuous practice.

What Can be Done?

• Reservation of a significant percentage of seats in law schools and universities for women.
• Focusing on better tertiary education for women and sensitising young girls to career options in the judicial services is the most obvious first step.
• There are deeper systemic changes needed.
• There is need of a more transparent manner of appointing judges. The introduction of clear and transparent criteria for appointing judges, a more even distribution of judges from both the bar and the services, and enhancing accountability are some alternative approaches to creating a judicial quota.
• We must also try and incorporate a lesson from England. It was only in 2003 that Britain got its first female judge in its highest court. The government created an Advisory Panel on Judicial Diversity, which was to investigate the barriers to women and in the judiciary and propose suitable remedies and recommendations. India too can look at creating such a body, and strike the problem of low judicial representation of women at its root.

Road Ahead

• There is no shortage of women entering the legal profession. Women comprised 44% of candidates who qualified in the 2019 Common Law Admission Test for National Law Universities. “Increased judicial diversity enriches and strengthens the ability of judicial reasoning to encompass and respond to varied social contexts and experiences. This can improve justice sector responses to the needs of women and marginalized groups,” found the International Commission of Jurists report.