One of Britain’s handful of senior women judges last night launched a blistering attack over the continuing lack of women appointed as High Court judges.

Lady Justice Arden, one of only three among 36 Court of Appeal judges, said that in the last three years only one woman had been chosen for the High Court bench compared with 29 men.

As one woman High Court judge had died during that time, the single appointment only kept levels of women judges the same as at October 2005, which was “extremely disappointing”, she said.

Lady Justice Arden added: “There are far fewer woman judges in England and Wales than in many other jurisdictions throughout the world. Even in developing countries, there are many more women judges than we have in this country.”

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At present, just ten per cent of the total of 108 High Court judges are women; and just over eight per cent of the 37 Court of Appeal judges.

She said that it was important to have women appointed to the senior judicial ranks both because the judiciary needed to reflect more accurately the composition of society and because women “bring different perspectives to bear upon a problem”.

Lady Justice Arden, who was addressing the Association of Women Solicitors, said that women had done well in terms of appointment on the circuit and district benches.

“I do not underestimate that achievement, or the work done by circuit and district judges,” she said. “Nonetheless it is important that women should also be appointed to the High Court.”

That was because of its important role in the legal system and because the route to the appeal courts was through the High Court.

Her comments on the dismal record of appointing women comes as the Judicial Appointments Commission is under scrutiny after being accused of failing to improve diversity in the judicial ranks.

Lady Justice Arden said that the commission should be given more time to do its task and should be supported in its work.

“We must press the JAC to look at every way of realistically fulfilling their special statutory responsibility of having regard to the need to encourage diversity in the range of persons available for appointment.

“We have never before had the opportunity to contribute to, and help fashion, the appointments process as we do now. We must utilise that advantage.”

She called for an investigation into the factors that caused women to leave the profession in greater numbers than men, which left a smaller proportion of women in the pool from which judges are chosen. Action should then be taken.

There also needed to be “constant vigilance” against the less visible factors that might act as a disincentive to women, she said, such as reasons of lifestyle or the way the profession was organised.

Women also preferred to be mediators than to become judges, which might “indicate that some women prefer a less gladiatorial approach to civil litigation”.

She added: “This is one of the matters on which they have a different perspective and on which they could not doubt make a quite special contribution to the development of the civil justice system.”

Earlier this year the Law Society of England and Wales also highlighted the lack of women and solicitor appointments to the senior judiciary.

Although the launch of the new Judicial Appointments Commission in 2006 was meant to herald an end to the old “tap on the shoulder” method of recruitment and so-called “secret soundings”, the make-up of the judiciary remained as it did in the senior levels, the society said.

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