Iran has appointed women as judges for the first time since its 1979 Islamic revolution, the Iranian news agency IRNA said on Thursday.
It quoted a judicial official as saying four women lawyers were named this week as judges in family courts in Shar Rey.Iran passed a law in 1992 opening the way for women to sit as assistant judges in courts hearing divorce cases, but the country's Islamic laws excluded women from positions in which they could pass judgment.
Some Iranian women's publications criticized the ban as having nothing to do with Islam and Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last year the issue of employing women as judges should be studied.
Iran last year appointed its first woman prosecutor, and officials said 20 women lawyers were being trained as investigative judges, who prepare cases for judgment in court.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, elected by a landslide in May partly thanks to wide support among women voters, has appointed three women to senior posts, including the Islamic republic's first woman vice president.
Tehran has rejected criticism by the U.N. Human Rights Commission and other monitoring bodies that it discriminates against women.