One of Queensland’s top judges has called for an increase in female representation at the Queensland Bar, and in the legal profession more broadly.
Justice Margaret McMurdo is the president of the Court of Appeal and the second most senior judge in the state, outranked only by Chief Justice Tim Carmody.
Justice McMurdo used the Queensland Supreme Court Annual Review of 2014 to call for action to be taken on the lack of women at the Queensland Bar.
“The public, the legal profession, the President and the judges of appeal remained aware of the under-representation of women at the Bar in Queensland,” she wrote.
“This year, women counsel appeared in 11.85% of all Court of Appeal appearances, although they comprised 21.44% membership of the Bar with practising certificates. Disappointingly, this has fallen noticeably from 14.6% last year.”
“The profession urgently needs to adopt measures to redress this concerning regression.”
The report also mentioned that female counsel appeared in only 16.2% of criminal matters and 7.2% of civil matters (down from 20.8% and 8.5%, respectively).
Justice McMurdo has been drawing attention to this problem for some time. She raised it in a speech in March of this year, and suggested the Liberal state government may have an unconscious bias against appointing women to judicial positions.
In September, she reflected on the problem again: “Well, how are things six months on? They have worsened.”
“The current Queensland government, since coming to office about two years ago, has appointed 17 judicial officers: four Supreme Court judges (including two to the Court of Appeal); three District Court judges, including the Chief Magistrate; and 10 magistrates. All but one (Magistrate Hay) are men. This means that only six per cent of these appointments are women.”
She also said that women make up less than 26% of Queensland’s Supreme Court justices.
The problem is not specific to Queensland. Of the 51 justices appointed to the High Court of Australia throughout its history, only 4 are women.
Why does Justice McMurdo think it is so important that women play an equal role in our legal profession?
“Let me remind you why it is important that women are approximately equally represented in these institutions and why I am concerned that this goal remains elusive, although for decades more women than men have graduated from Queensland law schools,” she said in October.
“It is not simply because I want you all to have lucrative, influential careers, although there is nothing wrong with that. It is because lawyers, together with an independent judiciary, play an institutional role in Queensland’s democracy. Lawyers have a fiduciary duty to protect and pursue their clients’ rights under the rule of law, unswayed by the power, privilege or wealth of others, and subject only to their duties to the court as officers of the court.”