Reports reaching the desk of Africa Today News, New York has it that Veteran UK lawyer Sue Carr has been named as the first woman to serve as the most senior judge for England and Wales in the role of lord chief justice, which dates back to the 13th century.
The 58-year-old Carr was appointed to succeed current Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett, who is retiring at the end of September.
The title-holder is in charge of the judiciary in England and Wales; Scotland has a different legal system. However, the UK Supreme Court’s establishment in 2009 diminished the title-holder’s preeminence.
Carr earned her barrister license in 1987 and has worked with the International Criminal Court in The Hague among other organizations.
She joined the appeals court in 2020 after being appointed as a criminal judge in 2009.
Read Also: UK Ex-Prime Minister, Boris Johnson Resigns As MP
Married with three children, the Cambridge graduate is a keen musician who sings in a lawyers’ choir and plays the piano.
Carr’s appointment comes as the UK government seeks to improve the gender mix in senior legal roles — although men account for two-thirds of judges, and ethnic minorities are under-represented.
Black judges make up just over one percent of the total in England and Wales, barely changed from 2014, according to a Law Society report last year.
“At that rate of progress, it would take until 2149 for the proportion of the judiciary who are black to match the current estimate for the general population — 3.5 percent,” it said.
In another report a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson has come out to announce his resignation as a member of Parliament, accusing parliamentary investigations into the ‘Partygate’ scandal of driving him out.
The 58-year-old Johnson revealed that he was stepping down on Friday with immediate effect, ‘triggering an immediate by-election’ in his marginal seat, which heaped political pressure on his successor Rishi Sunak.
Africa Today News. New York reports that Johnson had been fighting for his political future for so many months with a parliamentary inquiry investigating whether he misled the House of Commons when he said all COVID-19 rules were followed.
Parliament’s privileges committee had the power to recommend that Johnson be suspended from parliament for more than 10 days if they were to find he did mislead parliament recklessly or deliberately, potentially triggering an election for his seat.