Wildy Logo
(020) 7242 5778
enquiries@wildy.com

Book of the Month

Cover of Privacy as Property

Privacy as Property

Price: £95.00

Advocacy: A Practical
Guide 2nd ed




 Peter Lyons, Chris Taylor


Welcome to Wildys

Watch


Judicial Cooperation in Commercial Litigation 3rd ed (The British Cross-Border Financial Centre World)



 Ian Kawaley, David Doyle, Shade Subair Williams


Offers for Newly Called Barristers & Students

Special Discounts for Newly Called & Students

Read More ...


Secondhand & Out of Print

Browse Secondhand Online

Read More...


Elgar Companion to Female Chief Justices in Comparative Perspective

Edited by: Rosalind Dixon, Erin F. Delaney

ISBN13: 9781035308637
To be Published: April 2026
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited
Country of Publication: UK
Format: Hardback
Price: £265.00





This book investigates the role of female judicial leaders of courts worldwide, by exploring their contributions to constitutional guardianship as well as feminist institutional and jurisprudential change.

Leading scholars outline the origins and significance of the steadily growing number of female chief justices and court presidents across the globe. They provide valuable insights into the conditions that support increased female participation and representation in law and public life, as well as ongoing challenges and barriers. Chapters draw on perspectives from both common and civil law, as well as feminist constitutional theory, covering topics such as judicial responses to democratic backsliding, comparative leadership styles, right-wing female actors in authoritarian regimes, and gendered silences in judicial histories. The book explores the notion of feminist judicial heroines, emphasising the difference between female versus feminist judges.

This book is an exceptional resource for legal scholars and students with interests in gender and feminist dimensions of constitutionalism. It is also an essential read for judges and lawyers interested in the history and future of feminist jurisprudence.

Subjects:
Constitutional and Administrative Law, Comparative Law
Contents:
1. Judicial heroines? Comparative and conceptual reflections 1
Rosalind Dixon and Erin F Delaney

PART I FEMINIST JURISPRUDENTIAL LEADERSHIP
2. Beyond formal conceptions of judicial leadership: Women on the bench, judicial influence, and judge rapporteurs on the Romanian Constitutional Court 38
Silvia Suteu
3. Margaret H Marshall, Chief Justice, Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts: Of foxes, hedgehogs, and humanists 54
Vicki C Jackson
4. Emancipation through discourse: Constitutional heroines at the German Bundesverfassungsgericht 82
Lisa-Marie Lührs and Samira Akbarian
5. Lady Hale—The challenges of being a feminist court president 104
Rosemary Hunter and Erika Rackley
6. Justice of the future? Imagining foreign female judicial leadership 129
Anna Dziedzic

PART II INSTITUTIONAL REFORMINSTITUTIONAL BUILDING
7. Breaking barriers: Kenya’s first female chief justice – Martha Karambu Koome 151
Victoria Miyandazi
8. Institutional and judicial leadership of the first female chief justice in Ethiopia 174
Anchinesh Shiferaw
9. “What needs to be done?” Susan Denham, Ireland’s great judicial reformer 194
Clíodhna Ní Chéileachair
10. Feminist tribunal leadership 212
Janina Boughey and Lynsey Blayden
11. Female judicial leadership at the sub-national level: The pathbreakers redefining judicial values 232
Gabrielle Appleby and Heather Roberts
12. Czech constitutional heroines: Female leadership in transforming post-communist judiciaries 252
David Kosař and Katarína Šipulová

PART III WEATHERING AND RESPONDING TO CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS
13. Female judicial leadership and constitutional heroism in times of democratic backsliding: Mexico’s Chief Justice Norma Piña 273
Mariana Velasco-Rivera
14. Judicial heroines and constitutional leadership on Malaysia’s apex court 292
Yvonne Tew
15. Constitutional heroine of South Korea in the historical and constitutional context 314
Jeong-In Yun
16. Dame Sian Elias and “small c” constitutional heroism 332
Elisabeth Perham and Jessica Kerr
17. Judicial leadership in a divided society 361
Tracy Robinson
18. Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno: Revered, rejected, remembered 385
Emily Sanchez Salcedo

PART IV INDIVIDUAL, COLLEGIAL, COLLABORATIVE OR CONFORMIST LEADERSHIP?
19. Examining Chief Justice McLachlin’s judicial leadership 400
Vanessa A MacDonnell
20. Collegiality and feminist leadership: The Hon Susan Kiefel AC, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia 419
Gabrielle Appleby and Sarah Murray
21. Groundbreakers: Female justices and presidents in the Italian Constitutional Court 443
Diletta Tega and Tania Groppi
22. Engaged judicial leadership in the Netherlands 474
Maartje De Visser and Elaine Mak

PART V SILENCE, ABSENCES AND ANTI-HEROINISM?
23. The French Conseil constitutionnel and gender 492
Mathilde Cohen
24. Gendered silences? The lack of women chief justices in India 519
Dipika Jain
25. Constitutional anti-heroines? Judge Luz Bulnes and the role of right-wing women in Chilean authoritarian constitutionalism 543
Marianne González Le Saux and Marcela Prieto Rudolphy
26. Becoming chief justice? Gendered fault lines in judicial leadership in South Africa 560
Cathi Albertyn and Elsje Bonthuys
27. Penelope instead of Ulysses? Replacing heroic figures in constitutional theories’ myths 579
Leticia R C Kreuz