Shift Underway: Promoting Women’s Judicial Leadership in Asia

Across Asia, women have made significant strides in building gender-responsive judiciaries and rising to leadership positions.

In Southeast Asia, Maria Lourdes Sereno became the youngest and first female Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court in 2012. More recently in 2019, Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat was appointed as Malaysia’s first female Chief Justice. And in Thailand, there have been 4 female Chief Justices since 2020. In South Asia, Nepal saw the first female Chief Justice appointed in 2016 and the appointment of three female judges to India’s top court in 2021 has been hailed as a historic milestone.

Despite this progress, women remain underrepresented in the judiciary, especially in judicial leadership roles across the region. Structural barriers, gender biases, and cultural norms continue to hinder their advancement to senior judicial roles.

Increasing women’s representation in the judiciary, especially at senior levels, is a strategic step toward fostering a more inclusive and equitable justice system and is a key marker on the journey towards gender equality. Women judges bring invaluable perspectives that can help ensure more just outcomes for people seeking justice. Their presence not only builds trust and confidence in the justice system, particularly among women, but also drives critical reforms within the legal system.

This regional initiative aims to promote women’s leadership in the judiciary through support from the Global Gender Justice Platform. Building on lessons learned and leveraging networks established through previous initiatives, such as the Judicial Integrity Network in ASEAN, this regional initiative amplifies stories of the work women judges are doing to advance gender equality in the judiciary, facilitates the “Judicial Leadership Colloquium” and supports regional and country specific research on barriers to women’s leadership in the judiciary.

The initiative aims to explore the often-overlooked perspective of being a woman judge in the region. What does it mean to be a woman in the judiciary? To what extent can women enter and advance within judicial systems? What unique contributions do they bring to the bench? And how are their experiences shaped by the diversity and complexities of the regions they serve? It also unpacks how women judges navigate discrimination. sexual harassment and threats of violence, higher level of stress due to workload and domestic responsibilities, among others.

By promoting and supporting women’s leadership within the judiciary, this initiative aims to strengthen access to justice for women in the initial pilot countries, including Bangladesh, Lao PDR, Indonesia, and Thailand.

Objectives:

By promoting women’s leadership within the judicial system, this regional initiative aims to support the following changes:

• Increased Representation of Women in Leadership Positions
• Improved Institutional Support for Women Judges
• Enhanced Gender Sensitivity & Responsiveness in Judicial Processes

Key Components:

Regional research focuses on identifying key barriers, enablers, and motivation for women judges in taking up leadership roles in Asia. It aims to address the data gap on representation in the judiciary to inform data collection and reporting on SDG 16.7.1c.

Judicial Leadership Colloquiums will be held in Indonesia, Laos and Thailand, convening women judges to share knowledge, experiences and strategies for promoting gender equality in the justice system and advocating for gender-responsive judiciaries. Support to navigating barriers and discrimination as well as facilitating mentoring to support career advancement will be provided through the Colloquium and networks established through it.

Advocacy efforts will focus on strategies to support inclusive appointment processes and the development of guidelines to inform policies and practices to increase women’s representation in the judiciary. A regional communication campaign will be launched to highlight the importance of ensuring gender parity in the judiciary.