New SA Court Initiative Aims To Increase Number Of Female Barristers
Thursday 23 April 2015 @ 12.19 p.m. | Legal Research
The South Australian courts have cleared a legal hurdle in establishing their planned ‘Step Up To The Bar’ program, which is designed to increase the number of female barristers. The Courts Administration Authority had to submit an application to the Equal Opportunities Tribunal in order to implement the program by advertising to female candidates only. Last week (13 April 2015), they were granted the appropriate exemption under the Equal Opportunity Act 1984 (SA).
The program will create an associate role at the South Australian Supreme Court that will be reserved exclusively for practising female solicitors, to help them gain the necessary experience to become barristers. The role will be rotated every 12 to 18 months. South Australia’s Chief Justice Chris Kourakis told ABC News that action was needed to prevent women from being underrepresented in the senior ranks of the legal profession:
“More than 50 per cent of legal practitioners generally are women but only 25 per cent of barristers are women…
For several decades now, an equal number of women have graduated from our law schools as men.
We can no longer assume proportionate representation will balance out over time. We need to take a focused approach to boosting the number of women candidates for appointment to higher positions”
Reaction To The Program
The program was developed in consultation with SA’s Women at the Bar committee, whose chair, Sashi Maharaj QC, told ABC News it was a “novel initiative” which would help avoid a skewed judiciary who did not reflect the wider community:
“If you have fewer females at the Bar, then there are fewer females taking silk and that in turn is reflected in fewer appointments to the judiciary.
If you want to not only have a well-balanced judiciary that is reflective of the community and gives an appearance of impartiality and fairness, then I think the composition of the judiciary must reflect that as well.”
The move has also been welcomed by South Australian Bar Association president Andrew Harris QC, who told Lawyers Weekly:
“[t]his is an important initiative, because it is a recognition that something needs to be done to address the structural imbalance created for women by discontinuity of careers.”
Women And The Federal Court
Separately this week, Federal Court judge Melissa Perry told the Australian Financial Review that she is disappointed at the paucity of women appearing before her. While she believes that the good intentions and profession-wide policies are there, she says the change does not appear to be taking place:
“It’s fair to say we all agree on the value and need for equal opportunity, both in a gender and broader cultural diversity sense, [but] we’re not seeing enough change in the number of women who are actually briefed and being briefed in speaking roles…I’m worried that implementation of equal opportunity policies might have stalled.”
She also noted that the number of women appearing before her in public law matters seemed significantly higher than in commercial matters.
The Australian Financial Review reported that of the 363 senior counsel in New South Wales, just 36 are female, and it is a similar story in Victoria, with 22 women out of 233 senior counsel.
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