ABSTRACT
Representation of women in domestic and international courts is essential to the legitimacy of those institutions. Over the last decade low representation of women judges has begun to be addressed through reform of appointment processes. However, reforming formal appointment mechanisms does not eliminate the gendered informal structures of judicial appointments. Justice Mafoso-Guni’s biography—first woman to the Lesotho High Court and the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR)—illustrates the pervasiveness of informal gendered institutions as an obstacle to women reaching the bench, both in Lesotho and the ACtHPR. Using diachronic analysis, this chapter reveals the arch of Mafoso-Guni’s career trajectory and pauses to offer more in-depth analysis on her appointment challenges in Lesotho and to the ACtHPR. Placing Mafoso-Guni’s appointment challenges in the broader context of increasing numbers of women to the bench more generally, her story highlights both the limitations and the gendering of individual agency in light of weak formal institutional commitments to gender parity. It further reveals the gendered power asymmetries present in the informal institutional mechanisms of both domestic and international judicial appointments. Judicial appointments perfectly illustrate the gendered institutional context in which women seek to carve a pathway to the bench.
