Women now head every level of the NZ judicary

Chris Finlayson announced:

The Honourable Sir Mark O’Regan has been appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court and the Honourable Justice Ellen France will replace him as President of the Court of Appeal, Attorney-General Christopher Finlayson announced today.

This means New Zealand now has women as head of benches for all four principal courts:

• Chief District Court Judge Jan-Marie Doogue
• Chief High Court Judge Justice Helen Winkelmann
• Court of Appeal President Justice Ellen France
• Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias

I suspect we may be the only country in the world to have women head up every level of the judiciary. Pretty significant when you consider that it was only a few decades ago that women became lawyers in significant numbers, let alone judges. Our first female judge was in 1975 (Dame Augusta Wallace). The first female high court judge was Dame Silvia Cartwright in 1993.