BRITAIN: Britain's first female law lord, Dame Brenda Hale, will take up office on Monday, the UK Department of Constitutional Affairs announced yesterday.
Apart from being a law lord, the highest rank of judge in the UK, Judge Hale is also likely to be one of the 12 judges of Britain's proposed supreme court if the law lords are taken out of the House of Lords under proposed constitutional reforms, her clerk Ayo Onatade said.
Judge Hale, who will be the youngest law lord, had been one of three woman judges in the Court of Appeal since October 1999. She began an academic career in 1966 as assistant lecturer at Manchester University, becoming a Reader in 1981. During her time at Manchester, she came to specialise in family law and published a number of pioneering texts that successfully integrated legal and sociological materials.
In 1968 she qualified for the Bar and practised part-time as a barrister for three years in Manchester. She was appointed to the Queen's Counsel in 1989.
Within legal circles, Judge Hale is well known for her work as a Law Commissioner in 1984 - the youngest person ever to be appointed and the first woman - and later as a judge. She initiated the commission's work which produced the Children Act 1989, a fundamental and radical re-casting of the relationship between parents, children and the State.
Judge Hale has been outspoken about sexism in the judiciary. In a recent interview, she said she had been "deeply affronted" by the way judges' official lodgings are run like gentlemen's clubs, where ladies are expected to retire after dinner to leave the men to talk.
In 2001, she launched an attack on the wearing of legal wigs, saying they "deny women their femininity" and "humanise all of us into men".- (Reuters)