Women Judges constitute 56% of the Supreme Constitutional Court Judges, 50% of the District Judges, 36% of the Court of Appeal Judges and 43% of the Supreme Court Judges in Cyprus, said Katerina Stamatiou, President of the Supreme Court, on Wednesday.

Stamatiou was addressing the second annual conference "Women in Law", organised by the Cyprus Bar Association in Larnaca.

She added that "the legal equality of the two sexes as we know it today and as it is well established in international, European and domestic law, is completely absent from the legal order of the formerly civilized world. With the obvious aim of preventing any adverse discrimination between the sexes, special national mechanisms have been adopted in the Republic of Cyprus.”

She further noted that "with the enactment of the Combating of Racism and Other Discrimination (Commissioner) Act, the Commissioner for Administration and the Protection of Human Rights has the power to intervene in relation to discrimination, whether in the public or the private sector, in the areas of employment, labour, vocational training, education, social protection, social security and health care, and access to goods and services."

At the same time, the Supreme Court's President continued, the Commissioner for Gender Equality, a post which is expected to be officially established soon, "has broad powers and duties, with the aim of promoting equality between men and women and eliminating all forms of discrimination against women." Through the Gender Equality National Action Plans, a gender equality culture is being promoted, both in the state structure and in society as a whole, she added.

She also said that "the Human Rights, Anti-Crime and Correctional Policy – Gender Violence Department of the Ministry of Justice and Public Order is strengthening the entire framework for the promotion and respect of human rights, the implementation of anti-crime and correctional policy and the fight against gender violence."

Environment Commissioner Antonia Theodosiou spoke about environmental justice in the conference session entitled "Environment, Society, Corporate Governance & Sustainable Development Goals".

Cyprus, she said, has signed the Aarhus Convention in 1998 and ratified it in 2003. "Twenty-one years on, the Convention has had a positive impact in terms of environmental governance and institutional adherence to the first two pillars of the Convention - access to information and participation in decision-making," she said.

In her presentation, Theodosiou addressed in particular the third pillar, "that of civil society's access to justice for violations affecting the environment and thus the quality of life" and referred "to the current legal regime in the Republic and whether the law has been adapted to the international and EU obligations of our country, based on what derives from the Convention, and whether citizens actually have access to justice in the Cypriot legal remedies".

In his address, the President of the Cyprus Bar Association Michael Vorkas referred to equality issues and said that "the current Board of Directors of the Cyprus Bar Association, upon assuming office, has established the Equality Committee in order to focus on the relevant issues".

After the welcoming remarks, distinguished speakers from Cyprus and abroad spoke about contemporary issues regarding the empowerment of women, the upgrading of skills, the enhancement of their participation in positions of responsibility and decision making bodies, as well as the challenges they face in the modern labour market, especially in the field of law.