Islands Business - Women: WOMEN AND THE LAW

The road less traveled

Hannah Harborow
In a culture where the legal profession is perceived to be the domain of men, women have made gradual inroads—but have they travelled far enough?

Supposedly the most honourable of professions, the law, was the very last of the learned professions to admit women—and in the Pacific, one is still hard pressed to find a female lawyer in some places. In fact, when it comes to the legal profession, like in most professions, the higher you go, the smaller the number of women.

Tuvalu’s only female magistrate... Sala L Tapu.

A rudimentary gender audit of the legal profession in Fiji conducted by Imrana Jalal, a lawyer by profession and Human Rights Adviser at the Pacific Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT), shows that as of June this year, women made up 32 percent of registered lawyers in the country (97 out of 301), 43 percent of lawyers in the Director of Public Prosecutions Office (10 out of 23) and the Solicitor General’s Office (7 out of 16), 17 percent of partners in private law firms (12 out of 67), about 10 percent of sole practitioners (6 out of 55), 23 percent of the judiciary (3 out of 13) and 34 percent of the magistracy (8 out of 23). The number of women lawyers in the Solicitor General’s Office reflects only those within that office per se and does not include the total government-wide.

Jalal pointed out that government is doing better than the private sector and that gaining partnership in private commercial practice appeared to be one of the biggest challenges.

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, or a female Attorney-General.

There had never been a female President of the Fiji Law Society, the powerful professional controlling body for lawyers.

“It’s a challenge,” says Fiji Resident Magistrate Aruna Prasad. “It’s an area dominated by men and I want to prove that a woman can do it to.

“Yet there’s still some hesitancy on the part of some clients to have a female counsel since this is mostly a male domain.”

Lack of opportunity is a common obstacle. “I noticed how women are treated in my society and wanted to prove to myself, if men can be successful, I can too,” says Vanuatu Magistrate Linnes Moli Tari.

“There are no women judges at the moment, the reason being there were previously no women qualified for the position.

“But Vanuatu now has a lot of qualified female lawyers. Women will have to work harder and when the need arises for new judges, then we may be considered.”

Speaking recently at the Fiji Women Lawyers Association’s second anniversary celebrations, Jalal highlighted the low numbers of women in the legal fraternity, particularly at the higher levels such as the judiciary and magistracy, and called for affirmative action policies to narrow the gap.

“The struggle for gender equality in terms of numbers in the law is clearly still a struggle in which we must engage.

“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 says.

“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,” she says.

According to Jalal, the appropriate comparator should be, if there are two competing candidates, one male and one female, and they are more or less similar in formal qualifications but the female candidate has some experience but less than the male, affirmative action should operate in her favour.

The only exception to this might be if the institution or organisation was attempting to achieve diversity within its ranks and gender parity had more or less been achieved. It’s only by taking firm steps such as these that hundreds of years of systemic discrimination against women will be achieved, she says.

For Tuvalu’s one and only female magistrate, who’s been in the profession for 15 years now, success boils down to women not being intimidated, but supported through opportunity.

“My advice to young women is to pursue with vigour and determination the understanding and knowledge needed not only as a personal achievement, but as a tool to direct and guide future generations,” says Tuvalu Magistrate Sala L Tapu.

“Meanwhile, there should be more emphasis on equality...and opportunities offered should be increased so that all in society can have access to information on basic and advanced legal knowledge and studies to broaden and increase their understanding in preparation for changes ahead.”

• RRRT is a United Nations Development Programme project that provides training, technical support, policy and advocacy advice in human rights to promote social justice and good governance throughout the Pacific region. Hannah Harborow is Communications Coordinator at RRRT.