Affirmative Action Can Narrow The Gender Gap In The Legal Sector, Says RRRT’s Jalal

June 22, 2006 - (PR) Low numbers of women in the judiciary and magistracy in the region should be addressed by affirmative action, according to Imrana Jalal, Human Rights Adviser at the Pacific Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT).

Speaking at the Fiji Women Lawyers Association’s second anniversary celebrations at the Australian High Commissioner’s residence in Suva last Wednesday, Jalal said it was “time to narrow the gender gap”, particularly at the higher levels of the legal fraternity where in general, the higher you go, the smaller the numbers of women.

Jalal said her rudimentary survey of the legal profession in Fiji showed that currently women made up 32% of registered lawyers in the country (97 out of 301), 43% of lawyers in the DPP’s Office (10 out of 23) and the Solicitor General’s Office (7 out of 16), 17% of partners in private law firms (12 out of 67), 23% of the judiciary (3 out of 13) and 34% of the magistracy (8 out of 23).

In addition, she said, there were no women in the Judicial Services Commission, only one female Director of a justice agency (the Fiji Human Rights Commission), one female human rights commissioner out of three, and there had never been a female head of the Solicitor-General’s Office nor a female Attorney-General.

“The struggle for gender equality in terms of numbers in the law is clearly still a struggle that we must engage in. Until we are more or less equal in all sectors of the legal fraternity and at all levels of Government the notion of equality will always remain an illusion,” Jalal said.

“None of this should be taken to mean that women should be appointed just because of their gender. That would be doing us a disservice and would ultimately damage the cause of gender equality in the profession. But it does mean that where women are qualified that affirmative action should operate in their favour, even if their levels of experience are not exactly the same as that of their male competitors.”

“It is quite wrong to say that women should only be advantaged when and if they are on exactly the same level playing field as their male competitors. This is rarely ever the case given the huge gender gap in terms of experience and is a misreading of affirmative action principles.”

Jalal, a long-time human rights advocate and lawyer by profession, is a newly appointed Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists. In 1995 she played an integral role in the establishment of RRRT, a United Nations Development Programme project which provides training, technical support, policy and advocacy advice in human rights to promote social justice and good governance throughout the Pacific region.

From: http://www.pacificislands.cc/pina/pinadefault2.php?urlpinaid=22832