Being UK's 1st woman lord chief justice in 755 years within earshot for these 2

Ending a male stranglehold on the post of UK's lord chief justice dating back 755 years, a woman is set to hold the office for the first time. Two women – Dame Victoria Sharp, 67, a senior judge, and Dame Sue Carr, 58, an appeal court judge – are the only shortlisted judges to be interviewed by a specially chosen panel for the position.

Alex Chalk, UK's Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, is expected to announce the final decision within the next fifteen days. The lord chief justice is the head of the judiciary in England and Wales. The selected women will be recommended to the UK prime minister and then approved by King Charles. After more than 100 male holders of the post since it was established in 1268, the law may have to be amended to accommodate the title of “Lady Chief Justice", Telegraph reported. As the post has never been held by a woman, it remains written into the UK’s constitutional law as solely a male title in the form of “Lord”.

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Dame Victoria is the twin sister of the former Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp, who stepped down as the chairman of the BBC recently. Dame Sue is a court of appeal judge since April 2020.

Both the women broke through the judicial glass ceiling as Dame Victoria won promotion to the court of appeal at the first attempt. “She acknowledges she was very competitive, both then and now,” Prof David Clarke said, adding, “She was convinced that if she had not dedicated herself to her job as she did by rejecting any leave on the birth of any of her children, she would have been significantly disadvantaged; as she puts it, if you were not there in chambers, you did not receive briefs and you had no job.”

Dame Sue, a mother of three, was educated at Wycombe Abbey School, Bucks, and Trinity College Cambridge. In an interview, she described how she “threw myself into everything I could” at school including music where she admitted she was “not gifted in any way.”

“I chose the viola because I worked out that it would maximise my chances of getting into the school orchestra, something which I was keen to experience. It proved to be a canny choice. Despite my lack of talent, I ended up in the front row pretty quickly!” she said.

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