Women are underrepresented in the New Zealand judiciary. Although the proportion of women judges has improved over time, in 2021, 60% of judges in New Zealand were still men. It is widely accepted that unequal representation of women threatens the representativeness, quality, and impartiality of the judiciary, which undermines overall judicial legitimacy. Yet, scholars have paid little attention to the complex and interconnected reasons for the unequal representation of women judges in New Zealand, with previous research focusing in an ad hoc manner on certain social factors influencing the decisions of potential candidates, such as the barriers women experience in advancing through the legal profession. Significantly, there is little understanding in the scholarly literature of the complex nature of factors preventing women from becoming judges, or the relative advantages of potential policies or initiatives for improving the representation of women in the New Zealand judiciary.

I aim to address this research gap by examining the impact of judicial appointment processes, and specifically the use of gender-sensitive initiatives and policies within those processes, on the representation of women in the judiciary. I take a temporal approach to explore the barriers to women becoming judges, considering the experience of women in judicial appointment processes before, during and after appointment. To do so, I investigate the legal profession, judicial appointment criteria, candidates’ assessment systems, and the requirements of judicial roles. In addition, I compare the use of gender-sensitive initiatives developed and applied in New Zealand, which are ‘soft measures’ intended to enhance the proportion of female candidates for judicial positions, to result-based policies used in the Australian State of Victoria.

In this thesis, I argue that because women encounter multiple challenges during the judicial appointment processes in New Zealand, the processes, as they stand, perpetuate the unequal representation of women in the judiciary. Although the result-based policies in Victoria have rapidly increased the proportion of women judges, they failed to change the appointment processes. I recommend modifying the appointment processes by taking a systemic approach to address the interconnected issues discussed in this thesis. Overall, this thesis contributes to the ongoing discussion and debate on judicial diversity and effective initiatives for achieving greater judicial representation by women.