The chief justice of Canada is the presiding judge of the nine-member Supreme Court of Canada, the highest judicial body in Canada. As such, the chief justice is the highest-ranking judge of the Canadian court system. The Supreme Court Act makes the chief justice, a Crown in Council appointment, meaning the Crown acting on the advice of the prime minister and minister of justice. The chief justice serves until they resign, turn 75 years old, die, or are removed from office for cause. By tradition, a new chief justice is chosen from among the court's incumbent puisne justices.
The Supreme Court of India is the supreme judicial authority and the highest court of the Republic of India. It is the final court of appeal for all civil and criminal cases in India. It also has the power of judicial review. The Supreme Court, which consists of the Chief Justice of India and a maximum of fellow 33 judges, has extensive powers in the form of original, appellate and advisory jurisdictions.
The National Human Rights Commission of India is a statutory body constituted on 12 October 1993 under the Protection of Human Rights Ordinance of 28 September 1993. It was given a statutory basis by the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 (PHRA). The NHRC is responsible for the protection and promotion of human rights, defined by the act as "Rights Relating To Life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the constitution or embodied in the international covenants and enforceable by courts in India".
The chief justice of India is the highest-ranking officer of the Indian judiciary and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of India. The Constitution of India grants power to the President of India to appoint, as recommended by outgoing chief justice in consultation with other judges as envisaged in Article 124 (2) of the Constitution, the next chief justice, who will serve until they reach the age of 65 or are removed by the constitutional process of impeachment.
M. Fathima Beevi was an Indian judge who was a justice of the Supreme Court of India. Appointed to the apex Court in 1989, she became the first female judge to be a part of the Supreme Court of India, and the first Muslim woman to be appointed to any of the higher judiciaries in the country. On her retirement from the court, she served as a member of the National Human Rights Commission and later as the Governor of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu from 1997 to 2001. In 2023, she was honoured with Kerala Prabha Award, the second-highest honour given by the Government of Kerala. In the 2024 honours list, she was posthumously awarded the Padma Bhushan.
Dana Anderson Fabe is an American lawyer, retired judge, and mediator. She served as a justice of the Alaska Supreme Court from 1996 to 2016, including three terms as the court's chief justice. She previously served as an Alaska trial court judge for nearly eight years, from 1988 to 1996. Fabe was the first woman appointed to the Alaska Supreme Court, as well as its first female chief justice.
Susie Marshall Sharp was an American jurist who served as the first female chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. She was not the first woman to head the highest court in a U.S. state, but is believed to be the first woman elected to such a post in a state, like North Carolina, in which the position is elected by the people separately from that of Associate Justice. In 1965, Lorna E. Lockwood became the first female chief justice of a state supreme court, but in Arizona, the Supreme Court justices elect their chief justice.
The number of women in the United States judiciary has increased as more women have entered law school, but women still face significant barriers in pursuing legal careers.
Ellen Ash Peters was an American lawyer and judge. She was appointed to the Connecticut Supreme Court in 1978. She was the first woman appointed to that court.
Sara Rosalie Wahl was an American feminist, lawyer, public defender, clinical law professor, and judge. She was the first woman to serve on the Minnesota Supreme Court where she served for seventeen years. Governor Rudy Perpich nominated Wahl to the Minnesota Supreme Court in 1977 and Wahl won the election to the seat in a non-partisan election in 1978, defeating three male candidates. She chaired the state's Gender Bias Taskforce and Racial Bias Taskforce and led the American Bar Association's efforts to establish clinical legal education. She was a champion for the mentally ill and for displaced homemakers. She wrote 549 opinions including for the majority in holding that different penalties for crack and powder cocaine were unconstitutional in State v. Russell .
Ranjan Gogoi is an Indian former advocate and judge who served as the 46th Chief Justice of India from 2018 to 2019, having previously served as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India from 2012 to 2018. He is currently a Member of the Rajya Sabha, having been nominated by President Ram Nath Kovind on 16 March 2020. Gogoi served as a judge in the Gauhati High Court from 2001 to 2010, and then was transferred as a judge to the Punjab and Haryana High Court from 2010 to 2011 where he later was the Chief Justice from 2011 to 2012. He is also a member of the Committee on External Affairs in the Rajya Sabha.
Women in law describes the role played by women in the legal profession and related occupations, which includes lawyers, paralegals, prosecutors, judges, legal scholars, law professors and law school deans.
Women work in the legal profession and related occupations throughout Canada, as lawyers, prosecutors, judges, legal scholars, law professors and law school deans. In Canada, while 37.1% of lawyers are women, "50% ...said they felt their [law] firms were doing "poorly" or "very poorly" in their provision of flexible work arrangements". It was also reported that, in 2006 in Ontario, "racialized women accounted for 16% of all lawyers under 30" and that only 1% of lawyers were Aboriginal.
Justice Gita Mittal is a retired Indian judge. She is the former Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court and the first woman judge to serve in that capacity. She has also served as the Acting Chief Justice of Delhi High Court while she was serving as a Judge of the Delhi High Court.
Susan Larson Christensen is an American lawyer who has served as an associate justice of the Iowa Supreme Court since 2018 and as the chief justice since 2020.
