These were the 11 judges who sat in Britain's Supreme Court in 2010 and their ages were left to right: 61, 66, 62, 71, 72, 68 and 66 and front row : 71, 65, 71 and 73.
They had a collective age of 746 years.
Most of the other groups of judges in Britain follow their example of being old men with few women :
There are :
30 Lord Justices of Appeal with 4 women
17 in the High Court of Chancery with 1 woman
18 in the High Court Family Division with 6 women
74 in the High Court Queen's Bench with 9 women
These old men have been in the news. A headline in the Daily Mail yesterday read :
Judges may sue to save their 'free' pensions after threatening court action unless Government backs down
It made the following points, that they :
* are the only public servants who do not contribute to their pensions and
making them pay would save taxpayers £4million a year.
* are rebelling against an attempt to make them contribute and have threatened to launch an unprecedented court action against the Crown unless the Government backs down.
* say they are a 'special case' because the constitutional need to protect their 'independence' from Government means politicians should never cut their pay.
* have paid into a fighting fund to finance a court case and have suggested they could take their argument to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
P.S.
Their annual salaries range from £103,000 for district judges to £173,000 for High Court judges and £240,000 for the Lord Chief Justice and at present, all they have to pay is between 1.8% and 2.4% of salary towards the pension their spouse will receive following their death.
This compares with contributions as a percentage of salary of :
6% for nurses and teachers
10% for police and firemen
11% for Memebers of Parliament
around 8% for private-sector workers
Buh
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