Summaries of important editorials:

Gender disparity in judiciary:

Context: questions have been raised over gender disparity in judiciary in the context of the apathy shown towards the woman complainant by an all-male bench (headed by the CJI) in the immediate aftermath of the allegations, and by the in-house committee which has given a clean-chit to the CJI.

Women in judiciary:

• Since 1950, the SC has had only eight female judges out of 239, with the present three out of 27 being the highest concurrent representation women have ever had on the SC bench.
• In the subordinate judiciary, merely 27.6 per cent of the judges are female.
• In 25 HC collegiums across the country, there are just five senior female judges with 19 of the collegiums having no female judge at all.
• Only one woman so far has been a member of the SC collegium (Justice Ruma Pal), with Justice R Banumathi set to become the second later this year; and, at least until 2025, no female judge is going to occupy the CJI’s position.

Concerns and challenges:

• This lack of women on the bench, at all levels of the judiciary, is at the very root of the impunity.
• Current collegium system for the appointment of judges is simply not designed to ensure the elevation of women to the bench. Although the state and central governments have a role to play in the process, the final say, for all practical purposes, rests with the SC collegium. This appointments process in itself is severely lacking in women’s representation-.
• This nearly all-male composition of the highest decision-making bodies in the judiciary has made gender disparity a self-perpetuating phenomenon .

What is the way out?

• The only way out of this vicious cycle is for the nearly all-male collegiums to go beyond their inherent biases and take affirmative measures to improve gender diversity on the bench.
• The HC collegiums should consciously recommend more female names for elevation and the SC collegium must consider such recommendations more favourably.
• The female judges should be elevated early enough in their careers so that they make it to the collegiums and become decision makers (the average age of the 19 female judges elevated since October 2017 is 53 years).