Woman nominee for European court
Seven nominations were from women
A woman has finally been nominated to serve on the European Court of Human Rights, which has long been insisting that a female be included in the list of three Maltese candidates for the post.
The three judges nominated were Chief Justice Vincent de Gaetano, Mr Justice Joseph Filletti and Madam Justice Abigail Lofaro.
The elected judge will replace Judge Giovanni Bonello, who was meant to retire at the age of 70 but has stayed on until a replacement is found. Madam Justice Lofaro's name replaced that of Mr Justice Joseph D. Camilleri who was on the original list of nominees.
Since 2006, the government has been trying to persuade the European selection committee to choose one of the three male judges it had been nominating.
The Maltese government had originally chosen Chief Justice de Gaetano, Mr Justice Filletti and Mr Justice Camilleri, judges who sit on the Constitutional Court.
It argued they were the most qualified and experienced, but the ECHR refused the nomination three times and insisted one of the nominees had to be a woman, for gender equality's sake.
Last September, the Justice Ministry issued a fresh call for applications and specified that at least one of the short-listed nominees would have to be a woman.
The government received 14 applications, including seven from women.
Only two women had applied when the 2006 applications were issued. One of the three short-listed judges nominated yesterday by the government will be selected to serve on the ECHR following an electoral procedure conducted by the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly.
This is the second time Madam Justice Lofaro has made gender-based history. In October 2006 she was the first woman judge to take her place on the bench.
After serving as a magistrate since January 9, 1996, she was nominated as a judge together with her colleague Madam Justice Anna Felice, the two becoming Malta's first women judges.
"Being appointed a judge meant a lot to me personally but it was also an achievement made on behalf of women who, for the first time, are now represented on the judges' bench," Madam Justice Lofaro had said during a ceremony to mark her first sitting.