‘Role model’ Baroness Hale retires from Supreme Court
THROUGHOUT a career in which she was appointed the first female president of the Supreme Court, Baroness Hale has always fought for equality in “male institutions”.
But as she made her valedictory speech yesterday, she admitted that it was not just men that women had to struggle to work alongside.
In a ceremony at the Supreme Court she acknowledged that “there are women who find working for women harder than working for men”.
Some of the biggest names in the legal profession gathered to celebrate the “enormous impact” she has had “on women in the law and beyond”.
The president of the Law Society, Christina Blacklaws, said she was as a “powerful role model”, and thanked her “on behalf of all girlie swots”.
But Lady Hale, 74 – the first woman appointed to the Law Commission, the first female Law Lord, the first female Supreme Court justice and the first woman president of the Supreme Court – pointed out that “not everyone thinks I’m such a good thing”.
During her career she has been described as one of the “legal commissars subverting family values”, the “most politically correct judge ever” and a “hard-line feminist” intent on destroying the institution of marriage. “You do have to feel a bit sorry for those allmale institutions which have had to adjust to the very different contribution that women might – not necessarily would – make,” she said.
“But adjust the Law Lords did. Of course, some stereotyping lived on. Why else was I put in charge of art and interiors when we moved into this building, while others were in charge of the serious business?”
Lady Hale, who as president ruled that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision
‘You do have to feel a bit sorry for those all-male institutions which have had to adjust’
to suspend Parliament was unlawful, also defended the independence of the judiciary.
The justices do not know one another’s political views, she said, adding: “Long may that remain so. Judges have not been appointed for party political reasons in this country since at least the Second World War.”
Lady Hale will sit as a cross-bench peer in the House of Lords, as well as working as a judge at Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal. She will appear as a guest editor on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme over Christmas.