A panel of judges with a majority of women is to hear a case at the country’s highest court, for the first time in English legal history.
Three female and two male judges will rule on a Supreme Court case beginning on Wednesday.
The hearing is to decide whether a 19-year-old man was deprived of his liberty when he was moved from a psychiatric hospital into a home where he was under constant supervision and control when he was 16.
Women have been able to practise as barristers since 1920.
The judges on the panel are Supreme Court President Lady Brenda Hale, Lady Justice Mary Arden, Lady Jill Black, Lord Robert Carnwarth and Lord David Lloyd-Jones.
The UK legal sector is one of the least diverse in the world, according to a report by human rights charity Justice.
Just three of the 12 Supreme Court judges are female. Lady Mary Arden became the third after she was sworn in on Monday following the retirement of the court’s former deputy president Lord Jonathan Mance, who is her husband.
Earlier this year Lady Hale, the country’s most senior judge, said there are now more women than men studying law and entering the legal profession in the UK.
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