Armenia, Azerbaijan have lowest proportion of female judges in Europe

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia and Azerbaijan have the lowest proportion of female judges across Europe. A new report published by the Council of Europe said that 23% of judges in the former and only 11% in Azerbaijan are female.

The figures - which date from 2014 - were published in a Council of Europe report on judicial systems. The Council is separate from the European Union.

To date, few States or entities have implemented specific measures to promote gender equality within the judiciary through recruitment. Only Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Germany, Montenegro, Norway and UK-England and Wales indicate that they apply specific rules in this regard.

For example, in Armenia, parity between men and women is one of the considerations when drawing up the list of judge candidates, which must contain not less than 25 % of representatives of one gender.

The position of Armenia's Minister of Justice, by the way, is held by a woman, Arpine Hovhannisyan.

Also the report said, the judge staff has seen a significant increase in the country, registering an 11% hike between 2010 and 2014.

The United Kingdom has the lowest proportion of female judges in the EU, according to the research. The report says 30% of judges in England and Wales are female. The figure falls to 23% in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The highest percentage of female judges in Europe was reported in Slovenia (78%), Latvia (77%) and Romania (74%).