Women in the legal profession in Malta still encounter a glass ceiling, according to a female judge.

“Despite a conscious effort in the last few years to appoint more women to the judiciary, the percentage is still too low. I would hope that as time goes on, we won’t need positive action to see more female judges,” Madam Justice Lorraine Schembri Orland said.

During an International Women’s Day activity organised by the University’s Gender Issues Committee, Madam Justice Schembri Orland pointed out that the first female magistrate was only appointed in 1991, and the first judge 15 years later.

Today, 36 per cent of the judiciary is made up of women, with 11 female magistrates out of 21, and just five female judges out of 20.

Dr Schembri Orland said women in the legal profession were still constantly asked the “insulting” question of how they managed to cope with work and family.

“There was a constant need to prove myself: to show that I could do my job even though I was also a wife and a mother. It is only women who are still expected to address this conundrum.

“The road to equality should allow women a choice whether and how they want to prove themselves.”

The need to celebrate International Women’s Day, she said, was as pressing as ever because women were still not being allowed to give their full contribution “as women.”

“To achieve equality, you have to embrace gender, not negate it,” she said.