Susan Kiefel has just been named Australia’s first female Chief Justice and in doing so, she’ll end 113 years of men leading the nation’s highest court.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made the announcement:
“The Governor General is appointing Susan Mary Kiefel as the next Chief Justice, the 13th Chief Justice of Australia, the first woman to hold that role,” Turnbull said.
“She took silk in 1987, the first woman in Queensland to do so. In 1993 she became the first woman to be appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland. She has been one of Australia’s most outstanding judicial officers.”
Kiefel left school at 15 and completed her high school studies part-time while working as a legal secretary. She then studied law part-time before being admitted to the Queensland Bar in 1975, and later became the first woman in Queensland to be appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1987.
Malcolm Turnbull was full of praise for the former Federal Court judge, saying “Susan Kiefel’s story is one that is an inspiration”.
Current Chief Justice Robert French said in March he would stand down in January, ahead of his 70th birthday.
