Editor, Solicitors Journal

High Court appointments take women judges to new heights

22 Oct 2015News

Steady increase in judicial diversity follows Lord Chief Justice's call for a level playing field

Two more women lawyers have been appointed to the High Court taking the total number of female judges to the highest it has ever been.

Her Honour Judge May QC, a Circuit Judge, and Bobbie Cheema-Grubb QC, a barrister at 2 Hare Court Chambers, have been appointed to the High Court Bench.

When sworn in they will take the number of women High Court judges to 23 out of 108. In 2005 there were just ten women at this level of the judiciary.

In addition, Cheema-Grubb, pictured, is the first Asian woman to be appointed to the High Court. She has been assigned to the Queen's Bench Division.

Having been called to the Bar in 1989 and taking silk in 2013, she was appointed as a recorder in 2007, and is approved to sit as a deputy High Court judge.

May QC has also been assigned to the Queen's Bench Division having been called to the Bar in 1988 and after taking silk in 2008. She was appointed as a circuit judge in 2008 and is approved to sit as a deputy High Court judge.

There has been a steady increase in the number of female circuit judges to one in five over the last decade. In addition, more than half of all judges in UK courts and tribunals, under 40 years of age, are women. Eight out of 38 Court of Appeal judges are female.

The overall number of female judges in the courts total 25 per cent and 44 per cent in the tribunals.

The new appointments come after remarks from the Lord Chief Justice that the judiciary had traditionally failed to attract enough women and people from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic communities (BAME).

In what has been seen as a rebuke to Lord Sumption's controversial comments, Lord Tomas Thomas said: 'The judiciary must be truly open to everyone of the requisite ability. I simply do not accept that this is an issue where we should be content to sit back and just wait for things to happen.'

The route to greater equality in the judiciary continues to be a long and arduous one for women lawyers. It was not until 1965 that Elizabeth Lane become the first female High Court judge, assigned to the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division, while it was not until 1972 that Dame Rose Heilbron became the first woman to preside at the Old Bailey.

In 1988, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss became the first woman appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal, before becoming the first female president of the Family Division of the High Court of Justice in 1999.

Lady Hale became the only woman to join the House of Lords as a Lord of Appeal in 2004, before becoming the deputy president of the Supreme Court in 2013. She remains the only female member of the UK's top court.