‘Why judges are referred in male gender’

The Director of Information of the National Judicial Council
(NJC), Soji Oye has explained why male and female judges are
mentioned in the male gender.

Females on the bench from Magistrates, judges of High Courts and
justices in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court are usually
represented as males in nouns, adjectives and pronouns.

Oye said this is because there is no ‘feminine’ gender in the
legal profession.

Barrister Amarachi Ubani said the idea has to do with the legal
profession as inherited from the British system where females are
usually referred to as “Gentlemen of the Bar and Bench.”

According to Jadesola Lokulo-Sodipe and others, the Nigerian
legal system “is based on the English Common Law and legal
tradition by virtue of colonization and the attendant incidence of
reception of English law through the process of legal
transplant.”