The government's decision to accept the Council of Europe's demand to place a woman on its nominations list for Malta's next European Court of Human Rights judge has received a mixed reaction from women lawyers and magistrates.

Some went as far as to call the imposed measure an "insult to women", since it puts more emphasis on their gender than their qualifications or experience.

The Council of Europe stipulates that each country must nominate at least one woman to ensure a gender balance on the list. But the government spent around three years trying to convince the selection board to accept an all-male list, and has only recently decided to issue a new call for applications which specifies that a woman must be included.

The successful candidate will succeed European Court of Human Rights Judge Giovanni Bonello, who reached the retirement age of 70 in 2006, but had to stay on since the Council of Europe refused to consider the Maltese nominations.

While this "positive action" was welcomed by women's rights organisations, it has not gone down well with all women magistrates and lawyers.

A female magistrate who preferred not to be named said gender should not be an issue and specifying that a woman had to be part of the list was "insulting".

She said the nominees should be chosen on the basis of their qualifications, even if the most qualified happened to be men. "It's our problem if there weren't enough women taking law in the past. It was our choice," she said, adding that experience was an important element that could not be ignored.

Criminal lawyer Veronique Dalli said choosing a woman on the basis of her gender was "demeaning" since people should be judged on their expertise.

However, criminal lawyer Giannella Caruana Curran said that, while the three initial government nominees were very competent, gender imbalance was something that needed to be addressed, even through temporary positive action like this.

"I feel the government should seek to address gender imbalance in appointments all round. The fact that it had to be pressurised into doing so is sad," she said.

The call for applications was published last Friday and specified that out of the three nominees to be chosen, at least one would be a female and one would be a male.

Originally, two women lawyers had applied for the first call, but according to the government they did not have the wealth of experience of Chief Justice Vincent DeGaetano, Mr Justice Joseph Camilleri and Mr Justice Joseph Filletti.

"We still feel our initial list of nominees was correct, but it wasn't accepted. We need to move on and this is why we're issuing a new call. Let's hope this time we'll be in a position to nominate the best man and woman for the job," Justice Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici said last week.

Meanwhile, fifth-year law student Victoria Cuschieri said: "Only time gives you the experience you need for such a post and, as the situation is, I don't think women have had that time yet."

She said it was not fair on qualified men if a less-qualified woman was chosen for the job but, in that case, the reasons why Maltese women did not have the necessary qualifications needed to be looked into.

cperegin@timesofmalta.com

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