TREASURER
2021
YEARBOOK
Guy Fetherstonhaugh QC
2022
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From the Editor
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
FROM THE EDITOR Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022 Treasurer: Guy Fetherstonhaugh QC Reader: Her Honour Judge Deborah Taylor Reader Elect: Sir Robert Francis QC Sub-Treasurer: Greg Dorey CVO Treasury Office: Inner Temple, London EC4Y 7HL 020 7797 8250 yearbook@innertemple.org.uk innertemple.org.uk Master of the Yearbook: Minka Braun Editor: Emma Hynes Assistant Editor: (Bar Liaison Committee) James Batten Assistant Editor: Henrietta Amodio Yearbook Managers: Nadia Ruiz and Leigh Trefny Desk Editor: Carolyn Dodds Archivist: Celia Pilkington E&T Editorial Team: Julia Armfield, Daisy Mortimer Photographs: Garlinda Birkbeck, MPP Image Creation, Inner Temple photograph archive Cover: J M Rysbrack’s Pegasus by SRM Yearbook Design: Jon Ashby | Noun Ltd, 10 Kingshill Court, High Wycombe, Bucks HP13 5FN wearenoun.com
Implausibly, a year has passed since Henrietta Amodio last told me my editorial for the Yearbook was overdue. My only defence is that I do not have very firm grip on time at the moment. We have not had the markers which usually delineate the Inner Temple year – we have not had a single Bar Guest Night, or summer party, or Grand Day for the entire period of this edition. The Inn has, however, managed to sustain and even grow. Because we have exploited technology, the Inn’s lectures and talks have reached a global audience. We have delivered world-class advocacy training and furthered our outreach in schools across the country through the innovative use of digital communications. I cannot imagine we will abandon this come the day we are also able to don our best and meet in person (assuming our best still fits following a year of lockdown… “sustaining and growing” may be quite literal in the undersigned’s case).
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As always, I am extremely grateful to everyone who worked on this Yearbook, many of whom are listed on this page. As much as it is my honour and pleasure to serve as Editor, truthfully, without their huge efforts, the Yearbook simply would not exist. I hope you enjoy reflecting on the remarkable year that has been. If you are new to the Inn, or if you have not previously been engaged with its work, welcome. I hope it inspires you to become more involved with our many activities. Emma Hynes Gatehouse Chambers
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From back, L-R: Henrietta Amodio, Daisy Mortimer Front, L-R: Julia Armfield, Leigh Trefny, Celia Pilkington
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CONTENTS
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
I
From the Editor
Contents
1
From the Treasurer
4
42
Master Cheryl Thomas
Master Fetherstonhaugh
Celebrate the Life: Master HRH The Prince Philip C
C
Celebrate the Lives
45
I
In Memoriam
49
6
Courtesy of The Times
One Bar: Experiences of Employed Barristers T
50
Master Sara Lawson with Sarah Williams, Master James Kitching, Simon Regis and Master Anupama Thompson E
Royal Bencher and The Duke of Edinburgh Scholarship
12
Roger Fenton: Inner Templar and First Accredited War Photographer
14
C
T
The Sub-Treasurer
A Public Health Approach to Equality Law RL
What Really Happened in Liversidge v Anderson?
COIC
53
79
18
Master Iyiola Solanke T
Education & Training
The Council of The Inns of Court
READER’S LECTURE SERIES
I
Giving Judges a Voice in Democracies RL
Emma Hynes I
READER’S LECTURE SERIES
22
L
Library Facilities and Services
80
L
Never a Truer Word…
82
Deputy Librarian
Master Inigo Bing
Social Context of the Law: Helmuth von Moltke and the Rule of Law T
26
Master Patrick O’Connor
Post-Lockdown Review: 32 the Junior Junior Bar on the Frontline I
Lily Walker-Parr and Oliver May I
Ivy Williams
36
Bridget Wheeler T
the Fire Courts
Professor Jay Tidmarsh and Master Donald Cryan
What Does It Mean to Be Anti-Racist in a Profession Full of Privileged People? T
84
Master Leslie Thomas 39
A
The History Society Review
88
The Archivist
Social Context of the Law: 90 Should UK Judges and Ex-Judges sit on the Hong Kong Court of Final T
Lord Neuberger, Master Charles Falconer and Master Treasurer A
Timeline
94
The Archivist
The Temple Church: Transforming with the Times TC
The Master of the Temple 2
96
Contents
T
Sovereignty Regained, EU Law Retained
98
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
READER’S LECTURE SERIES
The Absolute Ban on Assisted Dying and Lessons From Canada RL
Master Philip Moser
128
Dr Carmen Draghici
Valedictory for Her Honour Judge Korner CMG QC T
131
Master Reader, Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, Master John Ryder and Master Joanna Korner PS
Project Pegasus
134
A Silver Lining: Remote working of the 136 Bar Liaison Committee in the time of COVID T
‘Revelling’ in My New Role for The Inner Temple I
101
Simon Murray
Master Alastair Hodge TC
History Society: Law in the Time of Plague A
102
Temple Church Choir
138
Director of Music
Master John Baker, Master John Wass and Master Donald Cryan
A Reflection Upon the Case of Keziah Lewis T
106
Master Rhys Taylor I
Porters: ‘Guardians of the Gates’
108
Head Porter T
Circumstantial Evidence
110
Master Paul Purnell
A Portrait of the Inner Temple in 1722 A
112
The Archivist G
The Pond Garden
114
The Head Gardener
Social Context of the Law: Prison Reform T
The Extraordinary Life of Khushwant Singh
140
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Bar Liaison Committee
142
I
New Silks 2021
144
I
New Masters of the Bench 2021–2022
146
I
Masters of the Bench
148
118
(in order of seniority) I
People Finder
152
I
Committees
154
KEY A
Rev’d Jonathan Aitken and Chris Daw QC and Master Libby Purves A
Weddings and Baptisms
TC
COIC
C
121
E E G
Archive Assistant
I
Gilds and Things: Keeping the Peace in 10th-Century London A
Dr Rory Naismith
124
L PS RL TC T
ARCHIVES CELEBRATE THE LIFE COIC EDUCATION & TRAINING ESTATES GARDEN INNER TEMPLE INFORMATION LIBRARY PEGASUS SCHOLARS READER’S LECTURE SERIES TEMPLE CHURCH TREASURY 3
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
From the Treasurer
FROM THE TREASURER
I Guy Fetherstonhaugh QC Photo © Garlinda Birkbeck
Not since 1688 has a Treasurer of this Inn had the privilege to serve two years running – and especially in such unusual (although not unprecedented) times. I am indebted to the Inn’s Archivist, Celia Pilkington, for revealing that the last Treasurer to serve when multiple terms were a formal option was not Grimbald Pauncefoot in 1715 but rather Sir Robert Sawyer in 1683, the Attorney General, who served for five years. Sir Robert was Treasurer following the pandemics in the 1660s and during the great rebuilding of the Inn after the Great Fire. The accounts from the time disclose payments to Sir Christopher Wren for various dinners at the Devil Tavern on Fleet Street, when the refitting of the Church was discussed. It does not appear that the Treasurer stinted himself: a typical small dinner resulted in the consumption of “Battalia pie, salad, 2½ dozen of best Pontack, one dozen bottles of best canary, 6 bottles of best Champagne”. It is perhaps not surprising that the Inn’s records go on to describe Christmas at the Inn in 1687 as a period of “licentiousness and disorder, the great offence of Almighty God, the scandal and dishonour of this society, the corrupting and debauching of divers young gentlemen, members of the same and unless timely prevented may endanger the total subversion of the good government thereof”. The only solution was to ban formal entertainments during the Christmas period.
Sir Robert also presided over the “Battle of the Organs”, when Middle Temple proposed an instrument in Temple Church made by Bernard Smith, the King’s organ maker, who had built the organ for Westminster Abbey, while Inner Temple supported a rival by Renatus Harris. The two instruments were erected at opposite sides of the church in 1683 by their respective builders and prepared for the judgment of the two Inns, each playing on alternate Sundays. This competition continued until 1685, when Inner Temple received an order of parliament from Middle Temple suggesting that a speedy solution needed to be found and that Inner Temple should be prepared to agree that the organ by Smith was the best “both for the sweetness and fullness of sound”. The parties were unable to settle, and the competition became ugly, with allegations of sabotage, and finally a reference to Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys (himself a Bencher of The Inner Temple) for his determination in favour of the Middle Temple. Today’s Treasurer has had nothing so momentous to occupy his time – and the Middle Temple are now of course our firm friends.
The two instruments were erected at opposite sides of the church in 1683 by their respective builders and prepared for the judgment of the two Inns. But enough of the historical parallels. My own extended time in post has afforded me the opportunity to think at some length about the Inn’s role in the education and accommodation of barristers, as well as the part the Treasurer has to play.
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From the Treasurer
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
In ordinary times, the Treasurer is part-ambassador abroad, part-master of ceremonies and part-non-executive chairman, in nominal charge of a large estate and educational establishment. In the last two years, most of these functions have dropped away, while others have acquired an online presence. The role has, however, remained fairly active, not least because of Project Pegasus, which has been driven onwards throughout the pandemic and now nears completion. But over and above the Project Pegasus, there are aspects of the role of Treasurer which have remained gratifying and fulfilling, even in these uncommon times. Let me list them, mainly for the pleasure of my recall, rather than the edification of readers.
The return to real life should not however be allowed to prevail entirely over the valuable lessons learned from our acquired online expertise over the lockdown. Many of our Qualifying Sessions and committee meetings will remain online in the future, improving accessibility by those who in the past have not been able to attend without difficulty. We will also retain our use of UCLeXtend, UCL’s publicfacing learning platform, to deliver online training. This has been enabled through our Dean of Education’s contacts with UCL. New Schools Resources are now available on OpenLearn, delivered in partnership with the Open University, allowing the Inn to reach even more young people.
First and foremost, there is the delight of being surrounded (necessarily virtually but increasingly in real life) by the absolute stars of what I regard as the best profession in the world. These are all busy practitioners and judges (some retired but remaining industrious) who devote hours of their time to serving on the committees through which the Inn discharges its duties; who lavish care and attention on students in skills training; who administer hardship funds – the Inn’s guardian angels.
None of this would be possible without our staff, who not only run the Inn superbly in normal times, led by our estimable Sub-Treasurer, Greg Dorey, but who have responded quite magnificently to the wretched pandemic, adapting the Inn’s activities to an online existence. Our heads of department deserve special recognition. Each year, I am asked for a performance review of each, and I am never able to think of a single negative word. We are well served – and my job in particular has been a real pleasure as a result.
First and foremost, there is the delight of being surrounded (necessarily virtually but increasingly in real life) by the absolute stars of what I regard as the best profession in the world.
Lastly, and perhaps at the peak of my list of Treasurer goodies, is the Call speech, in which I have the privilege of mapping out, to an admittedly captive audience, my thoughts about the value of our career; the primacy of the rule of law; the importance of integrity; the sheer joy in competitive advocacy done well. Each Treasurer pens a different speech, and I will look forward to hearing my successor, Master Deborah Taylor, as she rises to the lectern next year. Let me end by paying tribute to Deborah: it is one thing to be Treasurer in a pandemic, because the compensating features are those I have mentioned above. It is, I would guess, less absorbing for the Reader – but Deborah has been outstanding in her support, loyalty and good humour. I leave the Inn in good hands.
It is becoming increasingly clear that our regulators will seek to introduce continuing competence training for advocates. We should not resist this; we should be at the forefront of it. Our own students say in their feedback forms that they would welcome refresher training every few years, and we as an Inn should respond to their requests. It is in our best interests to beat our regulators to this – for after all, if we are seen to be introducing best practice ourselves, there can hardly be any excuse for regulatory intervention. To do this, we will need a substantial increase in the numbers of our advocacy trainers – and we have the best of foundations on which to build. We will be embarking on that process with a practitioner survey this autumn, and it will be fascinating to see how it develops. I look forward to a future where the training of practitioners by their seniors is carried out for all of us, and not just our new practitioners.
Guy Fetherstonhaugh QC Master Treasurer
And I look forward (imminently now) to the completion of a splendid new education and training complex atop our Treasury Building and Hall, in which all this endeavour will be accommodated. I have watched the new accommodation take shape, and it is evident that it will be not only excellent for its purpose but will also be a rich addition to the Inn’s varied architectural heritage. Soon we will all be able to come together to celebrate the survival of the old and the creation of the new and enjoy the fellowship that has been missing from our lives these past two years.
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Master His Royal Highness The Prince Philip
CELEBRATE THE LIFE:
MASTER HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE PHILIP DUKE OF EDINBURGH KG KT OM GBE
Pioneering Royal Consort who served his adopted country in war and peace.
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“He looked,” recalled his aide and friend Michael Parker, “as if you’d dropped half the world on him.” Prince Philip and the young Princess Elizabeth had travelled to Kenya at the beginning of 1952 at the start of a royal tour, standing in for King George VI, who was too ill to travel. News reached them of the King’s sudden death, aged 56. The Duke’s wife was 25 and he was 30. Born to privilege but not to duty, he would now and for the years to follow embrace duty. His life had changed key. Until its end, he would be a tireless consort to the Queen. It was a responsibility that he had not expected so young, yet which thereafter he shouldered with energy, originality and flair. Alongside Queen Victoria’s Prince Albert, Prince Philip has been the most important royal consort in our history. Bar none, he has been the most successful. Prince Albert had blazed the trail, but a 20th-century consort had to make much of it up as he went along. In preparation, Philip had read Albert’s biography, but found it unhelpful, remarking that Victoria was “an executive sovereign” while modern monarchy was “an institution. I had to fit into the institution. I had to avoid getting at cross-purposes, usurping others’ authority.” Excluded from his wife’s governmental duties, the Queen’s young husband can have known only that he was there to support her. The world saw an unflagging, strong-minded, inquiring man, often crusty, sometimes testy, and on occasion startlingly direct. The Queen saw a husband, companion and friend. As the decades have passed, her subjects have become increasingly conscious of what is owed to an adroit and dutiful monarch. We are perhaps less conscious of what is owed to the man upon whom she depended. Prince Philip was born in 1921 in Corfu, the fifth child and only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. His family, the house of SchleswigHolstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, were descended from Danish aristocracy and placed on the Greek throne in 1863. Their tempestuous relationship with Greece culminated in a coup d’état in 1922. The royal family were forced into exile. Philip and his parents settled in modest circumstances in Paris, where he began his education at an American school, the Elms. Away from his home country, Philip was of uncertain status. Of advantage, however, were his links with Britain. Via his mother, he was the greatgreat-grandson of Queen Victoria and grandson of Prince Louis of Battenberg (whose anglicised family name, Mountbatten, he would later adopt). To cultivate these connections, Philip was sent to a traditional preparatory school, Cheam, in Surrey, between 1928 and 1933. In Britain, the Mountbattens took care of him, especially after his mother’s hospitalisation for paranoid schizophrenia in 1930.
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Philip’s schooling proceeded at two elite if rather unorthodox schools. The first, Schule Schloss Salem near the Bavarian Alps, was an institution where liberality of mind was imparted in a rugged and austere physical environment. When the Nazis forced its Jewish founder, Kurt Hahn, to flee, he restarted his project at a new school: Gordonstoun in Scotland. Philip followed, and thrived. Hahn’s appraisals of his student – “lively intelligence”, “meticulous attention to detail and pride of workmanship”, “capacity to derive great fun from small incidents” – continued to ring true. In 1939, Philip left Gordonstoun and, aged 18, entered the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth in Devon. He graduated top of his class, having received commendations including best cadet. His capability as a naval officer was apparent from the start and, had his life gone differently, few doubt that he would have achieved distinction on his own merits. During the war, Philip served around the world, seeing action in the Mediterranean in 1941 and witnessing the Japanese surrender at Tokyo Bay. Romantic legend has it that Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth were destined to marry from the time that they met at Dartmouth in July 1939, when she was 13 and he 5 years older. Philip’s mother was a cousin of George VI and he was no stranger to the British royal family, but how far their match was wished upon them we may never know. Certainly, the relationship was at first very private, but by the time the royal family returned from South Africa in the spring of 1947, it seemed generally accepted that an engagement was imminent. The formal announcement came on 10 July; Elizabeth’s father had not wished for the news to be made public before her 21st birthday. The question of religious affiliation had to be settled. Beyond believing (as he once said) that “religious conviction is the strongest and probably the only factor in sustaining the dignity and integrity of the individual”, there is no indication that the details of creed greatly troubled him. Baptised into the Greek Orthodox Church, he was now received into the Church of England. The way was clear for the wedding on 20 November 1947, the biggest national occasion since the war, which was celebrated with pomp and pageantry. At a time of austerity, the contrast drew notice – largely favourable. For a man of Philip’s ability, character and practical bent, the realisation at a relatively young age that henceforth everything would be honorary, much would be ceremonial, and no bauble or title could any longer be assumed to be earned must have been a difficult transition. On the eve of his wedding, he had been created Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich, and invested with the Garter. Yet for all he and his wife knew, her father would be on the throne for decades to come, and Philip wanted as normal a naval officer’s life as could be arranged. He went to sea, again as a first lieutenant, in the destroyer Chequers, based in Malta.
Celebrate the life
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
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The Queen and The Duke in the music room of Buckingham Palace in 1957
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Master His Royal Highness The Prince Philip
The years that followed with Princess Elizabeth on the Mediterranean island, leading an existence not unlike that of any other naval couple, were perhaps the happiest of his life. They enjoyed a liberty that they were not to know again.
This was not wholly true. Although performing the consort’s role unstintingly, he was determined to lead his own life and pursue his own interests. In October 1956, he set off on a world cruise in the Royal Yacht Britannia with two male companions, away from his wife and their two young children for more than four months. This appeared unusual. Journalists, particularly abroad, speculated that the marriage was in trouble. Unusually for those days, Buckingham Palace was stung into a fast response, issuing an official denial that there was any rift.
Five years after his wedding, in Kenya, he and Princess Elizabeth were at Treetops, an observation lodge in a giant fig tree, when the King died. She returned with Philip to Britain as Queen Elizabeth II. The coronation, the first to be televised, was a national sensation. Reunited with the Queen after the ceremony, her husband eyed her crown and remarked, “Where did you get that hat?” Prince Philip was made an admiral of the fleet, but the honorifics were already becoming too numerous to recite. At a charity Lord’s Taverners luncheon in 1962, representing both hosts, guests and the beneficiary charity, he had to give and receive the welcome, and then present himself with a cheque. The rest of the consort’s days were to be marked by a frustrating yet creative tension between the need to be a figurehead and his capable officer’s urge to get his teeth into things.
In many ways, the Duke and the Queen did lead separate lives. They had their own dining rooms, sitting rooms and bathrooms, and when in 1982 an intruder gained access to the Queen’s bedroom and reports made it clear that the Queen slept alone, there was popular surprise – even sympathy. This was misplaced. Incomprehension at these personal autonomies may in part be explained by a lack of understanding of royal life.
Prince Philip was made an admiral of the fleet, but the honorifics were already becoming too numerous to recite.
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When he moved into Buckingham Palace (reluctantly: he would have preferred to remain in Clarence House), the footmen still wore powdered wigs. To Philip, this was symbolic of a culture that he was determined to modernise. An example was the bottle of whisky placed nightly beside the Queen’s bed, a practice that (her new husband learnt) arose from a request one night from Queen Victoria seeking temporary remedy for a cold. Nobody had since thought to rescind the command. Philip rescinded it. Nonetheless, his rationalist urge was often thwarted by the conservatism of the courtiers. Clashes were inevitable, aggravated by the Duke’s forthright manner. In one respect, though, the Duke was not on the side of the modernisers. From the start, he showed a fierce resolution to protect his wife from the ever-pushier intrusion of the press, broadcasters and palace diary-managers. The greater the nuisance, the more his irritation would show. He came to loathe the newspapers, once “accidentally” showering reporters with water at a Chelsea Flower Show. The loathing was long-standing. “Which are the press and which are the apes?” he asked when visiting Gibraltar in 1950. Soon after the Queen’s accession, the Duke suffered what he seemed to take as a deep personal rebuff. His uncle, Louis (Lord) Mountbatten, had suggested that the Mountbatten name should be adopted by the royal family in place of Windsor. Philip liked the idea, but it was quashed by the prime minister, Winston Churchill. A humiliated Duke complained that he was “nothing but a bloody amoeba. I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his children.” Many would understand Churchill’s view that a monarch does not adopt her consort’s surname; and the Duke’s wounded response is on the face of it curious, given the apparently calm resignation with which he was – metaphorically – to walk a few paces behind his wife for the rest of his life. Perhaps a bigger internal battle than was apparent had first to be won. For a strong character with a good mind and sharp opinions, accustomed both to command and to the presumption of male dominance, it cannot have been easy. At Singapore’s independence in 1959, he told the former colony, “I have very little personal experience of independence. I am one of the most governed people you could hope to meet.” Years later, he was to remark, “In that splendid language, Pidgin English, I’m referred to as ‘fella belong Mrs Queen’.”
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The Queen and The Duke with Prince Charles and Princess Anne in 1951 in the grounds of Clarence House, London
The intimate side of Philip’s life was inevitably a matter for speculation, but his obvious attraction to beautiful women was no secret. While he was still a bachelor, his cousin, Alexandra, Queen of Yugoslavia, said, “Blondes, brunettes and red-headed charmers, Philip gallantly, and I think impartially, squired them all.” Rumours abounded, none ever substantiated, about a goodlooking man with an eye for the ladies. When, during the Duchess of Argyll’s sensational divorce trial in 1963, photographs (from the neck down) emerged of an oral sex session at a high-society party, Philip’s name was included in newspaper gossip about famous men who might have been the man. No shred of evidence for this was even hinted at, but for a few weeks, speculation added to the gaiety of the nation. “The way papers write about my affairs,” he once told Lady Brabourne, Lord Mountbatten’s daughter, “I might as well have done it.” The truth was that the marriage emerged as exceptionally strong: a bond that seemed only to grow, enduring past the couple’s diamond anniversary in 2007 and beyond the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012, as her husband stood for hours beside her in the driving rain. A lasting tenderness between the royal couple is confirmed by those who knew them off duty in – but only ever in – circumstances that were relaxed and private. A former lady-in-waiting at the palace remembers, after a dinner at one of Britain’s great houses, a hand placed fondly and with great naturalness on the Queen’s shoulder as the couple rose from the table: “She turned and looked up at him. It was one of those little moments that say a lot.” A visitor to Sandringham during the Duke’s old age remembers sitting by the fire during a snowy January and looking out of the window when the Queen jumped up: “Oh look, Philip is out there. He’s been driving the four-in-hand again – in the snow!” This was said “with absolute affection”.
Celebrate the life
Prince Philip’s occasional irascibility, in private as well as in public, was famous; but in an era more inclined than his to emote, this should not be confused with an unloving nature. He had the public reserve of a man of his time and his breeding, but there is reason to suppose that reserve was all it was. The irascibility, however, combined with a sometimes careless lack of tact, became almost the Duke’s stock-in-trade, and it cannot be said that he was too rueful about this. In 1960, he told the General Dental Council: “Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, a science which I’ve practised for a good many years.” Travel had always been one of his pleasures. It became a duty. Prince Philip accompanied the Queen on almost all the official visits to Commonwealth or foreign countries and undertook many more alone. In his 80th year, he carried out 557 engagements. In his 97th, he finally performed his last official engagement at a Royal Marines parade at Buckingham Palace. Wherever he went and whatever he did, he tried – with occasional lapses – not to be bored or perfunctory. Invited in 1952 to become President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he took to it with gusto. The American correspondent of the New Scientist remembered, years later, the “astonished” audience at the Duke’s inaugural speech in Edinburgh, composed (said the correspondent) by his own hand and substantial, not merely ceremonial. Tellingly, the speech reviewed scientific progress since the time of the consort in whose steps he followed: Prince Albert. Philip’s genuine interest surprised his audience. The correspondent noted wryly that the US President had no scientific adviser, as the British queen now did. The occasion was to typify Philip’s sustained and public championing of science and technology. This distinguished him at the time, and it still stands out in the memories of today’s older generation, who will have been reminded of his futuristic passion for engineering in 2015 when the Duke came to see the progress of the new Crossrail underground tunnel in London. Informed that the railway should be open by 2018, he remarked, “Too late for me, then” – and then, some moments later, “or perhaps not!” Business-like without losing the light touch, he never lacked the confidence to joke. At the most solemn moment of the Kenyan independence celebrations in 1963, when the Union Jack was about to come down for the last time, he murmured to President Kenyatta, “I suppose you don’t want to change your mind?” Prince Philip’s extraordinary relationship with the people of Yaohnanen, a village on the South Pacific island of Tanna in Vanuatu, became a legend – as indeed did the Duke in Yaohnanen. Philip was worshipped there as a god. The islanders believed that he fulfilled an ancient local prophecy concerning the “pale-skin” son of a mountain spirit who had ventured across oceans in search of a powerful woman from a faraway land. Queen Elizabeth, they decided, was that woman; Prince Philip, the god. The Prince Philip Movement cherished his portraits and celebrated his birthday with feasting. Worshippers predicted and thereafter awaited his “return” to Tanna, as heralding immortality.
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Off-the-cuff remarks – the Duke was reported to have called the Chinese “slitty-eyed” and the Hungarians “pot-bellied” – continued to be seized on by the media, embellished and sometimes distorted. He was said to have greeted the berobed Nigerian Commonwealth Secretary-General with, “You look as if you’re ready for bed.” To General Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay, he allegedly declared, “It’s a pleasure to be in a country that isn’t ruled by its people.” Such reports did sometimes offend. Prince Philip’s sense of the ridiculous, his willingness to risk a joke and his unconcealed edge added spice to media coverage of (often) inherently boring royal visits, but although his jokes did not usually seem intended to offend, he was none too careful about the sensitivities of those he teased. To ask a distinguished Polish scientist at the opening of a laboratory in Cambridge in 2013, “Did you come here to pick raspberries?” risked offence. At a Golden Jubilee reception at Windsor Castle in 2002, he asked Simon Kelner, the (republican) editor of The Independent why he was there; when Kelner replied that he had been invited, the Duke retorted: “Well, you didn’t have to come.” At home, too, his sudden candour could variously amuse or discomfit. The recipient of an honour describes arriving with his (male) partner at the investiture, presided over by the Duke. Wishing to make some polite remark, he told the Duke how much it meant to him that his partner had been invited. Prince Philip gave him a flinty glance. “Nothing to do with me.” As a breed, it cannot be said that the Duke much cared for politicians; or, as a trade, for politics. With some of the leading political figures of the many generations he spanned, he did establish a friendly rapport; but his impatience with what he saw as the failure of government to sort things out showed through. One minister recalled a small lunch where he found himself opposite the Duke who, learning that he was responsible for shipping, let fly at his guest on the problems faced by the British merchant navy. This continued through the meal until, under siege, the minister permitted himself the remark that Prince Philip might possibly have a word with his wife, who saw the Prime Minister every week. The Duke checked himself, looked ashamed, apologised handsomely and left the topic.
As a breed, it cannot be said that the Duke much cared for politicians; or, as a trade, for politics. A former press aide at Buckingham Palace during the Duke’s younger years remembers warning him that a speech he was planning in Cambridge, about Marxism, was inaccurate and ill-considered. The Duke called the aide a “socialist arsehole” and proceeded with the speech. It was received with much criticism. When the Queen asked the aide whether he had viewed the draft, he replied that he had commented on it, but to no effect. “Next time,” said the Queen gently, “show it to me.”
Although their wide-wandering god never did come back, Philip handled his cult status with tact and respect. These were sometimes, however, in short supply. He could be too careless whether people realised he was joking; and sometimes he wasn’t, he was simply rude. On a cricketing occasion, he confused and dismayed a member of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) who had asked whether he had enjoyed his meal by replying, “What a stupid question.” In 2010, within the hearing of both the Queen and Pope Benedict XVI, he indicated the tartan tie being worn by another guest and asked the matronly leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, Annabel Goldie, “Are you wearing knickers made out of that material?”
At a reception at St James’s Palace in 2013 to celebrate the presentation of his 500th Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Master His Royal Highness The Prince Philip
The aide remembers too, though, that when he left the palace, he received unexpectedly the kindest of personal letters from Prince Philip: friendly, grateful and encouraging.
The death of Diana brought an outpouring of popular grief to which the Queen and the Duke, choosing to remain in Balmoral, were at first seen by the media as insensitive. Prince Philip, then 76, played his part in answering criticism by walking with the young princes, William and Harry, behind Diana’s coffin during the funeral procession.
As a father, the Duke expected much from his children and sometimes seemed disappointed. His relationship with his eldest son, Charles, did not appear easy; two such different personalities would have been unlikely to rub along smoothly. The Prince of Wales was shy and sensitive, more inward, more inclined towards matters of the mind and spirit than the Duke’s gung-ho and matter-of-fact bent. His father’s sending him to Gordonstoun had for Charles been a wretched choice. Yet it may say as much about the father as the son that Charles was never crushed. Reports of distance between the two, however, persisted; and it was said that Lord Mountbatten, who had much influence over the young prince, acted as a go-between. From Jonathan Dimbleby’s authorised biography in 1994, a picture emerged of a prince who blamed his problems partly on an overbearing father. In 2001, a journalist, Graham Turner, claiming to draw on inside information, wrote that the Duke saw Charles as “precious, extravagant and lacking in the dedication and discipline to make a good king”. In an attempt to defuse the situation, and with his 80th birthday approaching, the Duke, perhaps mindful of his susceptibility to outbursts, wrote his son a letter of apology.
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Philip’s relationship seemed easier with his daughter, Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, as plain-speaking as her father. The pattern was repeated, in reverse, with his two younger sons. Prince Andrew’s service as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands conflict was seen as indicating a man in his father’s mould. Prince Edward, like the Prince of Wales, was another sensitive character who should never have subjected himself to the rough regime of the Royal Marines. His resignation after four months upset his father, but there is no reason to believe that Prince Philip treated the failure as a matter for blame. A protective parent, Philip understood from experience the pressures placed on his children by their station. A journalist remembers an occasion when a colleague, hoping to move the conversation beyond pleasantries when the Duke met their group, ventured to suggest that not all the younger members of the royal family had shown their parents’ respect for royal responsibilities. “What do you expect us to do?” snapped the Duke. “Strangle them at birth?”
A protective parent, Philip understood from experience the pressures placed on his children by their station. Knowing the problems of marrying into the royal family, the Duke was initially sympathetic to Lady Diana Spencer, later Diana, Princess of Wales; and to Sarah Ferguson, later Duchess of York. Prince Charles accused his father, who disapproved of his affair with the married Camilla Parker Bowles, of pushing him into marrying Diana. The Duke’s response was said to be that he was simply concerned that Charles should make up his mind one way or the other. This was probably a more ambiguous and tangled episode than the caricature of forced marriage has suggested. Yet Prince Philip became less enamoured of his daughters-in-law when the marriages broke up. A picture of the Duchess of York sunbathing topless in the attentive company of an American lover was published while she was staying at Balmoral. She left abruptly after strong words from her father-in-law. He was firmly supportive of the Prince of Wales after the failure of his marriage, especially after the publication of Andrew Morton’s book in which Diana came out fiercely against the royal family. 10
Even in his mid-80s, he made no concessions to age in his public duties. Always aware that the “brand image” (as he liked to put it) of the royal family needed renewing and updating for the modern age, he had made clear his approval of the developing relationship between his grandson Prince William and his popular girlfriend, Kate Middleton. Their engagement and subsequent wedding at Westminster Abbey in 2011 was an event that both he and the Queen must have looked on with relief as well as pleasure. No doubt the groom’s grandfather will have cast his mind back to his own wedding in the same place, 63 years earlier, in another age and what must have seemed almost another country. One wonders whether, looking back at himself when young, the old Duke met the frank glance of the progressive young naval officer that he had been then, and saw in his modernising grandson the same understanding that times change, and the monarchy must move with them. The occasion of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding was a very modern pageant. The royal and celebrity worlds met in Windsor that day and the most glamorous guests were not the landed families of Europe, but impeccably tailored American actors. The royal family has an unhappy history with beautiful American divorcées and Prince Philip knew well how glittering royal marriages can turn sour. But his inner thoughts, as ever, were his own. The cheering crowds saw only the Duke’s wave through the window of his Daimler, before a frail man – only recently recovered from a hip operation – walked steadily behind his wife into St George’s Chapel. Although no substitute for a proper job, there was no shortage of causes wanting his support. To this role, Prince Philip brought energy, meticulousness and an uncompromising nature. Among others, Philip was President of the World Wildlife Fund UK from 1961 to 1982, International President from 1981 and President Emeritus from 1996, travelling widely in connection with its work.
To this role, Prince Philip brought energy, meticulousness and an uncompromising nature. His books, Birds From Britannia (with his own photographs and text) and Wildlife Crisis, testify to the seriousness of his interest in the subject, although his killing of a tiger during a big-game hunt in the early Sixties drew charges of hypocrisy. He dealt with these in a typically robust manner. A small charity working with the Royal British Legion became concerned that its need to avoid banks in corrupt countries by dealing only in cash might compromise the Duke. They explained their dilemma to him. “So, the politicians can’t steal the money?” asked Prince Philip. “Bloody good thing.” Perhaps his most enduring achievement, conceived as early as 1956, was the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme, designed to foster enterprise and endeavour among the young. David Eccles, then the Education Secretary, told him, “I hear you’re trying to invent something like the Hitler Youth.” The tease was misplaced. Awards were given for a variety of testing leisuretime activities, involving community service or individual achievement, which were overwhelmingly outdoors. More than 5 million young people have taken part in the scheme. The Duke would meet hundreds of participants every year. Once, he met one unintentionally. He had scolded a boy he found walking in the grounds of Balmoral – “You can’t just wander about anywhere, you know” – and asked him what he was doing. “My Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme,” the boy said.
Celebrate the life
Perhaps his most enduring achievement, conceived as early as 1956, was the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme, designed to foster enterprise and endeavour among the young. He always had strong views. John Sentamu, the former Archbishop of York, reported being rescued from an argumentative Duke by the Queen. “Philip and his theories…” she consoled him. Yet the theories were fiercely, intelligently and consistently held. A gloomy Malthusianism surfaced repeatedly. “In the event that I am reincarnated,” he said in 1988, long before COVID-19, “I would like to return as a deadly virus, to contribute something to solving overpopulation.” As his 90th birthday approached in 2011, the Duke was still carrying out 300 public engagements a year. He refused to reduce his workload and his commitment to royal engagements remained unstinting until he announced his retirement at 95. While his thoughts on royal family matters – such as Prince Andrew’s suboptimal interview with Emily Maitlis or Prince Harry’s decision to stand down from his royal duties – would remain private, even out of the public eye Philip never stopped. It is true that he did not, as his wife did, meet Donald Trump. Instead, aged 97, he flew 200 miles to be at the christening of a godchild. He was said to have more than 50. After a lifetime of engagements, why did he attend? Whether out of a sense of god-parental duty, or a disinclination to meet President Trump, or both, this was a man with a mind of his own. He demonstrated it again in January 2019 when a Land Rover he was driving overturned after a collision near the Sandringham Estate. He was uninjured, but one of the women in the other car came away with a broken wrist. Unbowed, the 97-year-old Duke was spotted driving again two days later, without a seat belt on – although he subsequently surrendered his driving licence.
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
The most vivid of the pictures of Prince Philip in old age, however, had come seven years earlier, when he was at the Queen’s side as she processed down the Thames in a royal barge escorted by almost 1000 small craft in a celebration of the Diamond Jubilee. It was unseasonably cold, with high winds and heavy rain. The Duke’s stalwart bearing on deck drew the television cameras, and his interest in all aspects of the pageant and refusal to sit down during several hours of what turned into an ordeal were remarked on by all. Admiration only increased when it emerged that he had been suffering from a bladder infection for which he was admitted to hospital the next day. It is the fate of many who live long enough to be old for a long time that this final impression is what survives them. Nobody under 35 can remember the Duke of Edinburgh except as elderly, and by the time he died Prince Philip had appeared to a whole generation as a grizzled figure from an earlier age, owing everything to family, overtaken by history, with old-fashioned tactlessness about foreigners, inclined to be tetchy and grumpy about change. These debits should be entered upon the register. Birth and marriage arranged Philip’s elevated situation and it was a pity that his great privilege never lent him the tolerance, courtesy or openness to all types that it might have. He could be unpardonably rude. Yet to call that his legacy would be to mistake the man and his distinction. In his time – and most of those alive today were not alive then – Prince Philip was a strikingly modern figure who transformed the role of consort. With a tenacity that has not marked every royal personage in our history, he believed in duty, self-discipline and hard work. He embraced change and was a meritocrat by persuasion, if not by birth. He believed in research and training, in science and technology – he believed in competence and knowledge as few royal predecessors ever had. He came early to environmentalism. He championed business and industry and was fascinated by how things worked. Unlike many of his class, he was curious about the world. At the last a very, very old man, Prince Philip never ceased to believe in youth. The Duke of Edinburgh was born on 10 June 1921. He died on 9 April 2021, aged 99. Courtesy of The Times Friday 9 April 2021
Portrait of Prince Philip aged 15
At Runnymede with the Duke of Cambridge for the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta
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Royal Bencher and The Duke of Edinburgh Scholarships
ROYAL BENCHER AND THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH SCHOLARSHIPS His Royal Highness became a Royal Bencher of the Inn in 1954, and Royal Treasurer in 1961. He visited the Inn on numerous occasions, including for the Rededication of the Round in Temple Church in 1958, the 400th Anniversary of the Letters Patent granted to the Inns by James I in 2008 and more recently in 2013 for a special service following restoration of the Temple Church Harrison & Harrison organ. TIMELINE
16 November 1954 His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh elected to the Bench
9 November 1955 Her Majesty The Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh visit The Inner Temple Hall for a Grand Day dinner
C December 1966 Amity Dinner attended by Her Majesty the Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh who also attended a service of thanksgiving in the church
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Rededication of the Church Round attended by the Her Majesty the Queen, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and HM The Queen Mother
Scholarship Appeal Party in the garden attended by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh
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19 April 1961
Elected Royal Treasurer with The Right Honourable The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley as Deputy Treasurer
Grand Day
The Duke of Edinburgh Scholars During his tenure as Royal Treasurer, The Duke of Edinburgh Entrance Scholarships were founded to assist ten students with free entrance scholarships. The Deputy Treasurer Walter Monckton, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley 1961 commented that “it is hoped that a number of young men who might otherwise be lost to the profession will be attracted by these scholarships.”
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The scholarships were intended to cover the cost of admission and Call and to attract students who might otherwise choose careers that did not impose fees. In 1971, the rules for the scholarship were amended to exclude from the terms the payment of education and lecture fees and that the number of scholarships be increased to 25.
On 6 March 1972, the scholarships were further increased from 25 to 40 per year and, in 1985, this number was further increased to 50. The scholarships are awarded on the basis of merit and need.
The first Duke of Edinburgh Scholars, 1962 D R G Hands, C B Hertzog, C L Kelly, J A Swift, G L Tunnell, D A G Vaughan, H P D Bennett, M A Blythe, R A Henderson, A Irvine
Celebrate the life
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
2008 The Duke of Edinburgh at dinner for Past Treasurers
24 June 2008
June 1985 Service of Thanksgiving for the 800th Anniversary of the Consecration of the Round Church 1185-1985 in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh
400th Anniversary of the Letters Patent granted to the Inns by James I and commemorated by a service of thanksgiving in the Temple Church attended by Her Majesty The Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh
7 May 2013 Service of Rededication for the completed restoration of the Temple Church Organ in the presence of Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh.
Her Majesty The Queen signing a commorative document Photos © Christopher Christodolou
3 July 1990 HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and HRH The Princess Royal dine in Hall
Arriving at the Temple for the Quatercentary celebrations
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5 June 2008 Dinner for Past Treasurers
In 1962 when I was hoping to be called to the Bar and joined the Inner Temple I applied for every scholarship or source of financial support going. The relatively new Duke of Edinburgh awards provided vital help at a time when the expense of Call to the Bar was looming. It was still necessary to pay one’s pupil-master one hundred guineas for a year’s pupillage in those days and the possibility of pupillage awards by chambers was not even a speck on the horizon. I remain grateful to this day for the assistance which the Inn provided to me and to many others in meeting the costs involved in getting to the Bar. Without that financial support a number of us would have fallen by the wayside or would not have attempted to come to the Bar.
I was, and remain, very honoured to be one of the first 10 Duke of Edinburgh scholars – and looking at the list in 2021 thrilled to be in such distinguished company. As the Duke of Edinburgh recognised, in his pragmatic and innovative way, a scholarship especially with funds attached will indeed attract young people to pursue a career which might otherwise be closed or difficult to embark on. The fact that he chose to include the Bar and in particular the Inn of which he was the Royal Treasurer was a massive vote of confidence in us and an extraordinary contribution to the futures of so many people within the profession. There is a marvellous irony, at least for me, in recalling that when the then Deputy Treasurer, Walter Monckton, commented that “it is hoped that a number of young men who might otherwise be lost to the profession will be attracted by these scholarships” he did not know that one of the young men would be the Head of Chambers of the set that proudly bears his name or that the two most recent tenants were young women.
Master Roger Henderson
Master John Swift
Letter from Master Irvine in 1962
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Roger Fenton: Inner Templar and First Accredited War Photographer
ROGER FENTON: INNER TEMPLAR AND THE FIRST ACCREDITED WAR PHOTOGRAPHER By The Sub-Treasurer
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Self-portrait of Roger Fenton (1819–1869), albumen silver print from glass negative, February 1852
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© Public Domain, Gilman Collection, Purchase, Harriette and Noel Levine Gift, 2005
Treasury
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
The Valley of the Shadow of Death in the Crimea, possibly with cannonballs artfully placed on the road © Public Domain, Roger Fenton (1819–1869)
When I was Ambassador in Hungary in 2008, 12 prints of Roger Fenton’s photographs – five of them unknown to modern experts – were discovered in the library of the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest (where many lawyer friends studied). The prints reflected two of his main themes – British landscapes and romanticised pictures of life in the Middle East. A small exhibition was mounted, and I was pleased to be asked to write the foreword to the accompanying brochure. The story of how the prints came to be in the ELTE library – or indeed in Hungary – is not yet known. But this important British pioneer, whose work can be said to have changed the world, was the photographer of the British royal court. And for many centuries the main contacts between distant Christian countries like Britain and Hungary tended to take place within the framework of royal relationships. So perhaps it was in this context that these photographs arrived there. For me, it was a good excuse to flag up our bilateral cultural links. (As it happened, the British Embassy was showing an exhibition of photographs, hopefully more realistic than Fenton’s, of Muslims living in modern Britain at that same time.)
This important British pioneer, whose work can be said to have changed the world, was the photographer of the British royal court. And there my interest in Fenton might have ended, had I not discovered recently that he had been a member of the Inner Temple. Following his comfortable upbringing in the wonderfully named Crimble Hall in Lancashire, Fenton was admitted in 1839 at the age of 20 when studying English, mathematics, Greek and Latin at University College London. (He graduated with a first-class BA degree.) He began to read law there in 1841 and eventually qualified as a solicitor in 1847, having been distracted along the way by becoming a painter – he studied in Paris and later exhibited his paintings at the Royal Academy. Fenton was called to the Bench in 1851, but it is not clear that he practised as a barrister until 1862 – it is what he did in between those dates which makes him famous. Fenton became one of the first great photographers, though he spent less than a decade in the 1850s in the profession. He seems to have taken this direction as a result of a visit to the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 and seeing the photographs on display. He then studied technique in Paris, had his first photographic exhibition in the UK in 1852, and became founder and first secretary of the Photographic Society (later the Royal Photographic Society).
Fenton became one of the first great photographers, though he spent less than a decade in the 1850s in the profession. In 1854, Fenton became the world’s first accredited war photographer and, in 1855, he travelled to the Crimea to cover the war with Russia. His cameras and wet plates were large and cumbersome, and he was therefore restricted in what he could capture – no action shots as such, but he recorded the life and conditions of the serving troops in considerable detail, as well as the local landscapes. Despite cholera, depression, facing high temperatures and breaking several ribs, he produced over 350 usable negatives of the campaign – fascinating studies, but not commercially successful. Seated ‘Odalisque’, one of Fenton’s romanticised ideas of Muslim life, carefully staged in a studio © Alamy Stock Photo
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Roger Fenton: Inner Templar and First Accredited War Photographer
Several of Fenton’s pictures from Balmoral feature gillies, the Scottish gamekeepers who have for centuries acted as hunting and fishing guides © Royal Photographic Society Collection / Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Though there is some controversy to this day about aspects of his work on the Crimean War – not least the fact that he was an uncritical observer – he trailblazed the role of war photographer. In this role, he combined innovation, artistic merit and interest, bringing visibility to a major public issue of the day. Fenton was in many ways ahead of his time. His work is often included in collections of photographs that changed the world.
He recorded the life and T conditions of the serving troops in considerable detail, as well as the local landscapes. Despite cholera, depression, facing high temperatures and breaking several ribs, he produced over 350 usable negatives of the campaign.
After his return from the Crimea, Fenton travelled widely around the UK photographing architecture and landscapes, in particular exploring the lyricism of Scotland (and Wales). Another of his themes was studio studies showing a romanticised and idealised picture of Muslim and Oriental life, often featuring his friends and models in rather obviously posed but often exotic (and occasionally mildly erotic) shots. He balanced uneasily between the world of ‘trade’ photographers and those, for example in the Royal Photographic Society, who rejected any thought that there should be commercial gain in photography. This is probably why he gave up after about a decade. The recognition of photography as art came later. Fenton died in 1869, aged only 50. His grave and that of his wife were demolished exactly a century later when the Potters Bar church where they were buried was deconsecrated for development. Greg Dorey CVO Sub-Treasurer
Balmoral Castle, Roger Fenton © Royal Photographic Society Collection / Victoria and Albert Museum, London
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
A Public Health Approach to Equality Law
A PUBLIC HEALTH APPROACH TO EQUALITY LAW From a lecture delivered by Master Iyiola Solanke via webinar on Monday 5 October 2020.
The title of this lecture is A Public Health Approach to Equality Law, and what I hope to do is have you think about whether it’s possible to take a more holistic approach to tackling discrimination that includes the law but also goes beyond it. My format for doing that is to think about how public health specialists go about tackling viruses. Thinking about what equality law is for, I’ll highlight a couple of academic ideas. Deborah Helmond, an American academic, argues that the purpose of equality law is to tackle demeaning distinctions. One of the examples that she gives is that a sign that says ‘men only’ is not demeaning when we find it on a bathroom door, but when we see that on a courtroom door, that is demeaning. Tarun Khaitan, a British academic, emphasises a different purpose for equality law. His argument is that the purpose of equality law is to protect autonomy, ensuring that people have the freedom to make the choices that are best for them.
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What I’m going to suggest is that equality law goes beyond that, actually, to tackle stigmatisation. And in tackling stigmatisation, what I’m trying to emphasise is social power. So, equality law is not just there to enable individuals to enjoy their rights, but equality law also should exist to ensure that social power cannot be used to dehumanise people, and therefore make them susceptible to discrimination.
Equality law is not just there to enable individuals to enjoy their rights, but equality law also should exist to ensure that social power cannot be used to dehumanise people, and therefore make them susceptible to discrimination. Moving on to the evolution of the use of law to tackle discrimination in England and Wales. There were many attempts in the 1950s to introduce Private Members’ bills to tackle what was then called ‘the colour bar’, but none of these were successful because there was a reluctance to use law to tread upon common law rights. This only really changed with the adoption of the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) in 1964. This provides a backdrop to the first anti-discrimination law – the Race Relations Act 1965 – in England and Wales. That was replaced in 1968 by a second Act, which specifically prohibited racial discrimination in employment. In 1976, a more substantial Act was introduced, which was then brought into the Equality Act 2010.
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We now have a significant and mature framework of law to tackle racial discrimination. But I want to think about progress – I’m going to stay focused on race – and about what the impact has been of these bodies, these statutes and the body of case law over the last 50 years. In 2017, there were a number of surveys and investigations into race and racism in Britain. One of those was the McGregor-Smith report, which looked at race and employment – it concluded that there continued to be structural and historical bias in the labour market. A second report was the survey by David Lammy, of the criminal justice system. His conclusion was that there was still a significant over-representation in all areas of the criminal justice system of young black men. The shocking statistic provided in 2003 by the then Commission for Racial Equality, that that there are more young black men in prison in this country than at university, seems to still be accurate. Then there was the race audit conducted by the Cabinet – one of its conclusions was that white people are still much more likely to own their own homes and have jobs than people from ethnic minorities. Finally, looking at academia, one report by the Trade Union Congress on racism said that more than a third of all black and minority ethnic workers in the sector report bullying, abuse or racial discrimination by their employer. My next question is why there has been such limited progress. This was really the question that took me into thinking about the public health approach. My conclusion as to why there has been limited progress was that this can be traced to the individualism that is inherent in the legal approach to tackle racial discrimination and discrimination in general. I argue that our legal approach to discrimination is very much focused on individual attributes – either our sex or our skin colour or our age, our religious beliefs, et cetera. One of the things that the law has, in the past, forced individuals to do is choose between one attribute or the other. I think that is one weakness of the current approach to tackling discrimination. The second weakness is the way in which the law creates, or focuses on, an individual victim or complainant, which imposes a significant burden on that person who has to find their own resources to bring a case against an organisation. Having done that, even if they win, it’s questionable what they do win. Because often you’ll find those who bring cases of discrimination may have to leave their job and may find it difficult to find another.
Reader’s Lecture Series
The third limitation is the fact that when an individual does bring a case, if they are successful, then actually they are only successful against a single organisation or a single individual, but that doesn’t stop the individual or the organisation from treating another person the same way. To summarise, a significant reason for the limited progress of our equality laws is this individualism that is inherent in the way in which we tackle discrimination.
A significant reason for the limited progress of our equality laws is this individualism that is inherent in the way in which we tackle discrimination. My suggestion is that we think about discrimination in a more holistic way. And the analogy I make is that we should think about discrimination as a virus, for example, COVID-19. I’m not going to try to convince you that racism is, or discrimination is, exactly like a virus, but some similarities are that both discrimination and COVID-19 are invisible. Both can maim and kill, and both can leave survivors with effects that stay with them for the rest of their lives. If we think about discrimination as a virus, then we can start to think about the way in which we tackled discrimination from a public health approach. This would help us to take a more holistic approach, so we would not just focus on action at the individual level, but we would also think about taking action more at the social level, or at an environmental level. One advantage of doing that is that then we would think about positive action as a norm rather than as an exception, and we would then be in a better position to undertake systemic change. This idea of tackling discrimination as a virus can be broken down into taking action to break the chain of infection. If we start with the infectious agent – it can be bacteria, it can be a parasite, or it can be a virus. The infectious agent is the thing that causes the illness, and the action that needs to be taken to tackle the infectious agent begins with diagnosis. In order to break the chain of infection, public health professionals then need to identify the reservoir, which is the place where
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
the infectious agent grows. This can be a surface, it can be in animals, it can be in water, it can be in soil, or it can be in people. The action that is needed to break the chain of infection in relation to the reservoir is mainly cleaning. In this chain of infection, the portal of exit follows the reservoir: this refers to the way in which the virus leaves the reservoir. Exit can be through open wounds, through body fluids, or through droplets. The action that would need to be taken to prevent the virus from leaving the reservoir can include improving hand hygiene, it can include wearing face masks, or it can include better waste control. The next link in the chain of infection is thinking about the mode of transmission – this can include contact with surfaces, things that we eat, or even indeed things that we inhale. The action that we would need to break the chain would again include hand hygiene, protective equipment, improved food safety, improved cleanliness, sterilisation, isolation and also social distancing. We then have the portal of entry, which can be broken skin, it can be the nose, and it can be mucus. The action to break the chain in relation to the portal of entry is undertaking again hand hygiene, or first aid, or maintaining a social distance of two metres. Finally, public health professionals try to identify the susceptible hosts. The susceptible host is any person who has a prevalence to contract this infection. And the action that is taken there would be immunisation, or even simply education.
Both discrimination and COVID-19 are invisible. Both can maim and kill, and both can leave survivors with effects that stay with them for the rest of their lives. I’m not suggesting that all these types of actions would be things that we can undertake to tackle discrimination. What I’m suggesting is that, by analogy, we can think in a more nuanced and detailed way about how we tackle discrimination. What, for example, would the infectious agent be in relation to discrimination? Well, it could be either words or it could be images.
© Adobe Stock
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
A Public Health Approach to Equality Law
Thinking about the reservoir or the place where the virus grows: what could that be in relation to discrimination? It could be an educational curriculum or television scheduling that contains little or no contribution from black and minority ethnic experts or scholars. The portal of exit in relation to discrimination could be practices and policies. If we want to think about the way in which the infection spreads in relation to discrimination, this could be either directly or indirectly from person to person or via social media. If we think about the portal of entry, it could be visual, such as the prevalence of images of black men as criminals, rather than as judges, entrepreneurs or astronauts. And if we think about the susceptible hosts – this could be individuals who haven’t conducted any quality training, or it could be organisations that haven’t introduced any anti-racist or equality policies.
Section 158 of the Equality Act provides a general framework for positive action. It allows a person, if they reasonably think that persons sharing a protected characteristic suffer a disadvantage, or that persons sharing a protected characteristic have different needs, or that persons sharing a protected characteristic have a disproportionately low rate of participation in an activity, to take proportionate action to enable or encourage persons with the protected characteristic to overcome the disadvantage or to meet those different needs, or to enable and encourage persons sharing a protected characteristic to participate.
What thinking about discrimination along the lines of a chain of intervention helps us to do is diagnose. But once we’ve diagnosed discrimination, we then need to think about the action that we need to take. I want to think about what that would mean for legal educators and for legal practitioners. With legal educators, action that could be taken includes things such as widening participation. It could also include thinking about ways in which the curriculum could be decolonised. It could also include taking action to make the organisational vision more inclusive.
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In relation to legal practitioners, we could think more about the way in which we can use existing legal tools. The Equality Act does include provisions that would help us to take a more holistic approach to tackling discrimination. We simply need to emphasise them more. At the moment, positive action is seen as an exception to the more individual remedy for discrimination. But if we think about discrimination as a virus, then undertaking more collective action would become a norm.
The Equality Act does include provisions that would help us to take a more holistic approach to tackling discrimination. We simply need to emphasise them more. At the moment, positive action is seen as an exception to the more individual remedy for discrimination. But if we think about discrimination as a virus, then undertaking more collective action would become a norm.
And section 159 says that if a person, an employer, reasonably thinks that persons sharing a protected characteristic suffer a disadvantage connected to the characteristics or have a disproportionately low participation in an activity, then the Equality Act allows the person, the employer, to take action to overcome that disadvantage, minimise that disadvantage, or enable greater participation in that activity. So, there is already scope for taking a public health approach to tackling discrimination in the Equality Act. Then there is the public sector equality duty in section 149 of the Equality Act. There are three sections to this obligation to have due regard. I want to highlight the third, which is the obligation to foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons without that characteristic. This could be used to tackle discrimination in the reservoir in my analogy, the place where the virus grows. This could be used to enable more radical action in relation to developing educational curricula, for example, or developing programming schedules, or developing a more diversity in the media. A suggestion for legal reform is that more detailed guidance is given in relation to fostering good relations. Whereas it says that involving due regard to the need to advance equality of opportunity involves the need to remove or minimise disadvantages, that could be replaced by a need to remove and minimise stereotypes in order to foster good relations. To summarise, from a public health approach there are four key lessons for tackling discrimination. The first would require identification of the chain of infection, and then the determination of action to break the chain. The second would require a genuine commitment to change. The third would be the need to create a multilevel and unified action plan. And the fourth would be to ensure coordination and cooperation with international bodies. The ideas that I’ve discussed are drawn from a book I published in 2017, Discrimination Stigma (Hart), if you want to read some more about these ideas. Professor Iyiola Solanke Dean for EDI, University of Leeds, Chair in EU Law and Social Justice, University of Leeds School of Law and Academic Bencher
For the full video recording of this lecture: innertermple.org.uk/lectures
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
What Really Happened in Liversidge v Anderson?
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN LIVERSIDGE V ANDERSON? By Master Inigo Bing
Every barrister has heard of the case of Liversidge v Anderson, whether from practice, law school or exam cramming. It was about a detainee called Robert Liversidge, interned under emergency powers in the Second World War, who took a civil action for false imprisonment against the Home Secretary John Anderson. The action failed, but the case is remembered for Lord Atkin’s dissenting speech in the House of Lords when he protested against a construction of words which would give uncontrolled power of imprisonment to a minister. The House of Lords had to decide what the words ‘reasonable cause to believe’ meant and, apart from Lord Atkin, the House ruled the words meant the minister must believe he has reasonable cause to believe. That construction, Lord Atkin protested, showed judges to be “more executive minded than the executive”.
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Nowadays, Lord Atkin’s approach to the judicial role in setting limits to executive power is preferred, but at the time Lord Atkin’s forthright dissent was controversial. Liversidge v Anderson is an important case, but it has never been examined from the vantage point of the facts, which, until recently, have been a closely guarded secret. Liversidge’s Security Services files were only declassified in 2012 and only now can the true story of his detention without trial be told. It is a remarkable tale of anti-Semitic prejudice, entrapment by the intelligence services and the liberality of Mr Justice Birkett, formerly Norman Birkett KC, who played a crucial part in securing Liversidge’s release. Robert William Liversidge was born Jacob Perlzweig in 1904, the son of a rabbi who had fled Russia to make a family home in London. Jacob’s brother was also a rabbi on the executive of the World Zionist Federation when war was declared in 1939. It is beyond doubt that Jacob Perlzweig was not a Nazi sympathiser. He was a successful businessman with a substantial property portfolio. In 1926, he was on friendly terms with a man called Dore Baumberg, who was convicted at the Old Bailey of fraudulently obtaining share certificates from a widow. Liversidge later freely admitted that he had disposed of the certificates on the open market, although he did not know they had been obtained by fraud. The police continued to believe that Jacob Perlzweig was involved in the original deception, but he was never put on trial. He had left London in 1927, believing that better business opportunities lay abroad. In America, he met a man called Schapiro who had apparently committed a share swindle in New York. There was a suggestion that Perlzweig may have been his accomplice, but he was never charged with any offence. In California, he helped develop sound-recording equipment for the Hollywood studios, which were in transition from ‘silent’ movies to the ‘talkies’. When Robert William Liversidge, as he was now known, went to Canada on business he realised, in 1931, his British passport had expired and he needed a new one if he was to return to Britain.
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He then made a serious and costly mistake, which involved deceit. He applied for a Canadian passport in the name of Liversidge and falsely stated he had Canadian parentage and had been born in Toronto in 1901. These declarations were, of course, false, but he returned to Britain in 1936 on the Canadian passport. The following year, with the assistance of his solicitor, Lewis Silkin, he changed his name by deed poll to Robert William Liversidge. From that moment on, he was legally Robert Liversidge, and his company and personal business was conducted in that name. He was successful, rich and patriotic. On the day Germany invaded Poland, 1 September 1939, he applied for a commission as an officer in the RAF. He was, on the face of it, a most unlikely candidate for internment under emergency wartime regulations on the grounds of his “hostile associations”. But this is exactly what happened in May 1940 after he had given nearly nine months of unblemished service to his country in the Fighter Command of the Royal Air Force. He was arrested, detained and not finally released until December 1941, by which time he had become an embarrassment to the authorities. The story of his detention for a period of 18 months in Brixton Prison is shameful and reveals anti-Semitic prejudice, which infected the view the authorities took of him.
He was successful, rich and patriotic. On the day Germany invaded Poland, 1 September 1939, he applied for a commission as an officer in the RAF. The tale begins in March 1940 when three alien detainees, all German Jews, were apparently planning to offer bribes to secure their release. For some reason, Liversidge’s business address cropped up in their plot, and this set in train the events which led to his arrest and detention. He was labelled, in MI5 files, “an international crook who fled the country in 1927”. This is a reference to the Baumberg and Schapiro swindles for which he was never questioned or charged. However, by early April 1940, he was believed to be “connected with subversive activities to release aliens in internment camps”, although this allegation was never substantiated. When Special Branch discovered that Liversidge was born Jacob Perlzweig, the authorities jumped on this as it demonstrated that Robert Liversidge was an imposter. This was a misconception as it was not fraudulent for Liversidge to use his adopted name, changed by deed poll, to apply to join the RAF. Nor was he a “crook”. However, for Special Branch and MI5, Liversidge was a suspicious individual who should be watched. His bank accounts were scrutinised, his house was searched, his telephone was tapped and his safe deposit box was opened, all under wartime warrants, which were permitted “for the purposes of defence of the Realm and the efficient promotion of the war”. Nothing to Liversidge’s detriment was discovered.
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Then, on 25 April, a plot was hatched to entrap Pilot Officer Liversidge and have him detained under RAF disciplinary regulations. It was a disreputable cloak-and-dagger operation. The authorities had got it into their heads that Liversidge was a ‘crook’ with possible access to sensitive material, posing a danger to Britain’s war effort. A meeting was arranged between MI5 and Liversidge’s commanding officer at RAF Uxbridge. A memorandum of the meeting states, “It would be well (sic) if Liversidge could be placed under close arrest on a formal charge pending action between MI5 and Sir Norman Kendal [Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard] with a view to the internment of this man under the Defence Regulations. The RAF deputation agreed.” But what formal charge could possibly be laid against him under RAF rules? When he made his application to enlist, he was not subject to service discipline. During his eight months of service doing sensitive night-time photographic work his record was unimpeachable, but the minds of MI5 had already been made up. They wanted Liversidge interned, but on what grounds?
by Sir Archibald Sinclair, the recently promoted Minister for Air. Sinclair had written to the Home Office on 15 May, asserting it was “most undesirable that a man with the unsavoury and indeed dangerous associations of Perlzweig, who has had access to information of a most secret character, should be left at large”.
The entrapment operation was cunning. By an oversight, Liversidge had omitted to state his next of kin on his application form to join the RAF. Nobody had noticed this at the time. The ruse was to ask Liversidge to complete the form as a matter of routine. As he had applied in the name of Liversidge with a date of birth in 1901 (not 1904), he was obliged to provide names not called Perlzweig. No sooner had Liversidge put pen to paper than he was charged and detained under RAF regulations. He was subject to instant dismissal as an officer. Despite being under arrest and not obliged to incriminate himself, Liversidge provided a written statement about his previous travels in North America and he continued, “Since 1935 I have moved freely as Robert Liversidge. I changed my name officially by deed poll about five years ago and have been known as Liversidge for about ten years.” He went on to emphasise he was a Jew and he joined the RAF “to serve my country”. This clearly rattled the authorities. Sir Norman Kendal wrote to MI5 a few days later to say that “unless you have enough on him to justify internment there is nothing which can be done by anybody except possibly the Air Force”. Similar advice for caution was provided by Sir Tindal Atkinson, the Director of Public Prosecutions, who wrote on 4 May to say he was impressed by Liversidge’s witness statement. He advised, “In law a man’s unsavoury past and even his present contacts, if provable, are not relevant to the only available charge,” a summary matter punishable with a maximum of three months’ imprisonment. He then gave MI5 this warning: “Internment would be the only remedy and I fear this is a practical impossibility.” This wise advice fell on deaf ears, and MI5 insisted that Liversidge had obtained a commission by fraud and he had an unsavoury police record. A memorandum stated, “As to the DPP’s counsel of caution, a principle is at stake and I fail to see why rottenness of procedure, apparently in existence in this country today, should affect the principle in any way.” The Security Services were much more impressed by a letter written
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Everything was now in place for an application to have Liversidge interned. The alternative was a charge, which the DPP had advised against, or release, which MI5 and the Air Ministry did not want. The intelligence services’ obsession that Liversidge had sought entry into the RAF by fraud was a complete misconception. He had changed his name from Perlzweig to Liversidge by deed poll in 1937, and this entitled him to use that name on his application to join up. His photographic experience stated on the application form was perfectly true, and there was nothing in any alleged unsavoury background to suggest he was a security risk. On the contrary, he was a principled anti-Nazi.
The intelligence services’ obsession that Liversidge had sought entry into the RAF by fraud was a complete misconception. MI5 were scrabbling around to mount a case against him in the febrile atmosphere that was enveloping the country about a ‘fifth column’ in our midst. In April, Germany had invaded Norway, and the country had been taken over by the Nazis without any noticeable resistance. An American journalist, based in Oslo, claimed in The Daily Telegraph of 16 April 1940 that the Germans had only succeeded in their invasion through a “gigantic conspiracy”, involving highly placed Norwegian civilians who had, in some way, facilitated the German invasion. This claim is now discredited by historians, but at the time it was taken extremely seriously in Britain. In May 1940, the Joint Intelligence Committee reported to cabinet it was credible a “fifth column” was operating in Britain. When Hitler invaded Holland, the following month Sir Nevile Bland, Special Envoy to the Netherlands, warned Winston Churchill in memorandum that a “fifth column menace” existed in Holland. The claim was not supported by cogent evidence. It only remained for Churchill and the cabinet to make a decision about what to do about any ‘fifth column menace’ among Britain’s civilian population. All the powers to round up suspects were in place. The Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939 had been passed in a single day by parliament on 24 August 1939. The Act gave ministers wide powers to bring in regulations, which included detention without trial in the notorious regulation 18B. It stated, “If the Secretary of State has reasonable cause to believe any person to be of hostile origin or associations [the applicable words in Liversidge’s case]…and that by reason thereof it is necessary to exercise control over him, he may make an order against that person directing that he shall be detained.”
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
What Really Happened in Liversidge v Anderson?
By the time Liversidge’s case came up for consideration, the Secretary of State was Sir John Anderson. Arrests under emergency powers began on 23 May 1940, and by the end of May he had signed more than 400 detentions under regulation 18B, of which 69 related to citizens of the United Kingdom, including Robert Liversidge. MI5 now believed they had a new lead. They had discovered that in the 1930s a Dutch citizen called Van Lighten had made an application to join the British Security Services and had named Liversidge as a referee. Van Lighten was suspected of being a spy and his application was refused. The link between Van Lighten and Liversidge was a business one connected with diamonds. Van Lighten dealt in diamonds in Holland, and Liversidge had an interest in the design and manufacture of industrial diamonds. At that time, techniques for making industrial diamonds for use in precision engineering were being developed and it was perfectly lawful. A business associate of Liversidge called Nussbaum was apparently suspected of exporting industrial diamonds to Germany. Nussbaum and a man called Marcus persuaded Liversidge to help them set up the Carbonite Diamond Company, whose purpose was to produce industrial diamonds. But Liversidge had fallen out with Nussbaum and Marcus, and this was the subject of litigation Lewis Silkin was handling. Unfortunately for Liversidge, Marcus was a German national who had been interned as an alien and Nussbaum was suspected of helping the Germans. MI5 grabbed hold of these facts to build a case for Sir John Anderson to sign. For them, an ‘association’ with a possible German sympathiser and an enemy alien was the foundation of the case they were trying to construct. The Home Secretary was told “it was highly probable” Liversidge’s diamond business was dishonest even though there was no evidence it was. The ‘statement of case’ presented to the Home Secretary continued to allege Liversidge had obtained his commission by giving false particulars, enabling him to acquire information of a highly secret character. As the DPP and Sir Maurice Kendal had pointed out, it is far from clear that Liversidge gave false particulars in order to obtain a commission. He was using the name his deed poll legally gave him. His skills, acquired through business, were truthfully stated on his application form even if his educational qualifications were not. As to secret information, there was absolutely no evidence that he divulged anything sensitive while serving on Fighter Command. The statement then comments that Liversidge was, by nature, “completely unscrupulous”. This damaging assertion is not backed up by anything other than suspicion founded on the discredited rule of guilt by association. Nonetheless, the Home Secretary signed the order, stating: “I have reason to believe Jack Perlzweig/ Robert Liversidge to be a person of hostile associations and that by reason thereof…I direct the above mentioned…be detained.”
By good fortune, Norman Birkett KC had been appointed to chair the Advisory Committee and a transcript of Liversidge’s appearance before it in October 1940 survives. He was not allowed legal representation, but Birkett, flanked by two lay colleagues, presided with scrupulous fairness. Liversidge gave full explanations about his associations with Baumberg, Schapiro, Nussbaum, Van Lighten and Marcus. A reference from a senior RAF officer stated that Liversidge was “very definitely” opposed to the present German regime, and other references from former business associates attested to Liversidge’s loyalty.
Liversidge was taken on 30 May from his confinement at RAF Uxbridge to Brixton Prison, where he remained for the next 18 months. He immediately gave notice of his objection to his detention, which he was entitled to do under regulation 18B. His objections are heart-rending. “I must personally state,” he wrote, “it is fantastic that a person in my position (a Jew, a serving member of HM Forces and a person controlling some £180,00 of houses in London) should be detained. If (God Forbid) we should lose the war, not only would I lose everything I possess, but my life would most certainly be at an end because of my family, my father and brother both being Jewish Rabbis.” He then requested an early hearing before the Advisory Committee. This body had been created under emergency powers to allow a detainee to make representations against his detention, but the Committee was informal, inquisitorial, and its recommendations were not binding on the Home Secretary.
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The Committee put off a final decision as Birkett felt they did not have sufficient information about Liversidge’s past business dealings. He advised that Lewis Silkin be given an opportunity to demonstrate that past business affairs should not be seen “as a skeleton hanging round his neck”, thereby demonstrating there was no “ulterior motive” in Liversidge’s decision to volunteer for military duties. The Committee reported that alleged hostile associations were “really difficult to justify… The Committee were unable to find that at any stage Liversidge had been disloyal to his country…nor that the information he possessed would be used to injure his country.” Release was not recommended at that stage on the sole ground that the RAF had made it abundantly clear that on security grounds he should remain in detention. The Committee recommended continued detention for the time being, but they would return to the case on a later date. Liversidge had reason for optimism. He could soon be recommended for release when the Committee read about his legitimate business dealings, and he might also succeed in a legal case against the Home Secretary for false imprisonment. He had issued a writ against Anderson in March 1941.
He could soon be recommended for release when the Committee read about his legitimate business dealings, and he might also succeed in a legal case against the Home Secretary for false imprisonment. After Liversidge’s action against the Home Secretary became known, an intelligence officer noted, in April 1941, that evidence of hostile associations was not very strong and that the real reason why Liversidge had been detained was that “the RAF wished to get rid of him and have him detained as he was an untrustworthy person with a very bad character”. This was, of course, the clear view of Sir Archibald Sinclair, but RAF objections, in themselves, would not have been sufficient to make a case for the Home Secretary to sign. Liversidge was only detained as a result of representations from MI5, not those only of the RAF. When Norman Birkett began reconsidering the papers in July, there was something of a panic within MI5. It was beginning to dawn on them that they really did not have anything very incriminating against Liversidge. Responsibility for his detention was shifted to the RAF. MI5 began pleading for the RAF to moderate their stance. Unfortunately for MI5, the RAF simply repeated the line Sir Archibald Sinclair had taken earlier: “Liversidge is, as you know, an international crook and the functioning of the Operations Room, of which he had knowledge, has not changed. His release should be opposed.”
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By November 1941, Liversidge’s resumed hearing before the now elevated Mr Justice Birkett was imminent, and MI5 were now insisting Liversidge was originally detained “at the instance of the Air Ministry as he succeeded in falsifying his papers and getting a senior position in Fighter Command”. This, of course, was untrue. MI5 had themselves wanted Liversidge detained. Pressure was mounting for the intelligence services to distance themselves from responsibility for Liversidge’s detention as by now MI5 were anticipating Birkett would recommend his release. Then, at last, on 2 December 1941, just two days before the resumed Advisory Committee hearing, the Air Ministry conceded there was now no objection to Liversidge’s release. The resumed hearing on 4 December was something of a formality. The voluminous material on Liversidge’s business dealings revealed nothing to his detriment. At the end of the hearing, Mr Justice Birkett commented: “I have assumed you are heart and soul with the British cause? I have never had any reason to doubt it myself.” On Christmas Eve 1941, Herbert Morrison, who had now succeeded Anderson as Home Secretary, revoked Liversidge’s detention order.
As is well known, the majority of their Lordships ruled the words had a subjective meaning. Only Lord Atkin, among eight other judges and one master, ruled, emphatically, the words were capable of only one meaning and that was the ordinary meaning. This meaning was unambiguous. The words meant the Secretary of State did actually have to have a reasonable cause for his belief. The case Robert Liversidge brought against the Home Secretary was, therefore, concluded at a preliminary stage and the merits of the case were never considered.
In this whole saga, the courts of England and Wales had played no part in ensuring Liversidge received justice. The legal claim for false imprisonment against Sir John Anderson had stalled in tactical skirmishes, which did not touch upon the real issues in the case. In the pleadings, Liversidge was unable to state why his imprisonment was unlawful as he did not know the grounds upon which the Home Secretary had reason to believe his detention was necessary. Anderson, for his part, admitted nothing other than he had ordered Liversidge’s detention under regulation 18B. It was stalemate. Neither side put forward any facts to back up their respective cases, Liversidge because he was unable to, and Anderson because he did not want to. The litigation in Liversidge v Anderson was entirely on a preliminary point. Was it for Liversidge to show why his detention was unlawful or was it for the Home Secretary to demonstrate there was, in actual fact, a reasonable cause for a belief that his detention should be ordered? Liversidge had sought an order requiring the Home Secretary to provide particulars as to the grounds for his detention. The Master, the High Court judge and the Court of Appeal all refused to make the order. The application turned on the proper interpretation to be given to the words ‘reasonable cause to believe’. Was this something essentially within the knowledge of the Secretary of State himself or was a reasonable cause to believe something the existence of which could be ascertained? Did the words simply have a subjective meaning or should they be interpreted objectively?
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Neither side put forward any facts to back up their respective cases, Liversidge because he was unable to, and Anderson because he did not want to. The story did not quite end with his release in December 1941. By March 1942, Liversidge’s file was still open and a security officer commented, “Liversidge is of no great security interest. He was interned largely because after he obtained a Commission in the Air Force by false pretences, he came into possession of secret information and he could not be trusted not to impart it to others.” But, as Sir Norman Birkett had discovered, there was nothing remotely untrustworthy about the way Liversidge conducted himself. Despite complete exoneration before the Advisory Committee, prejudice against Liversidge persisted. In January 1943, Liversidge set up a company called Albermarle Productions with the object of providing ‘theatrical shows’ to the troops, but the War Office were soon to raise objections. In March 1943, a memorandum stated, “It was undesirable for a company run by a man like Liversidge to exhibit theatrical shows to camps with the blessing of the War Office.” Without War Office support, the project was doomed. Despite this setback, Liversidge’s business ventures flourished after the war ended in 1945 and he lived for another 49 years, becoming extremely wealthy. To his dying day, he insisted his imprisonment had been malicious, but, of course, his ability to argue this in a court of law had been denied to him by the majority in the House of Lords. His Honour Inigo Bing SOURCES: The National Archive. AW Brian Simpson, In the Highest Degree Odious: Detention Without Trial in Wartime Britain (Oxford, OUP, 1992), Peter and Leni Gillman, Collar the Lot! How Britain Interned and Expelled Its Wartime Refugees (London, Quartet Books, 1980) and Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm: the Authorised History of MI5 (London, Penguin Books, 2010).
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Helmuth von Moltke and the Rule of Law
SOCIAL CONTEXT OF THE LAW:
HELMUTH VON MOLTKE AND THE RULE OF LAW By Master Patrick O’Connor. Master O’Connor traces the disintegration of the ‘rule of law’ and of the legal profession in Nazi Germany after January 1933. One of the very few lawyers to engage in ethical resistance was Count Helmuth von Moltke, an Inner Templar. He paid with his life.
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Helmuth in Vienna. Inset: General von Moltke
Helmuth von Molkte and Family, 1932
EARLY LIFE Count Helmuth James von Moltke was born in 1907, to a distinguished German military family. His great-uncle was Chief of the German General Staff until 1914. His great granduncle, von Moltke the Elder, was the Field Marshal who modernised the Prussian army. He led it to victory against Austria and France before the unification of Germany in 1871. With Bismarck’s support, he acquired Kreisau, an estate in Silesia, later of historic significance. Since 1891, the Moltke Bridge has spanned the River Spree in central Berlin. And yet, on 23 January 1945, Helmuth was executed in Plötzensee Prison by the Nazi regime. He had been convicted of ‘treason’ by the so-called ‘People’s Court’ in Berlin. We will explore how the ‘rule of law’ collapsed under the Third Reich after 1933, and how Helmuth came to this fate. His ethical confrontation with the Nazi dictatorship may have enduring significance for us. Helmuth fully qualified as a lawyer in 1934. He refused a judicial career, because of the Nazi regime’s requirement to join their party. He pursued a very early commitment to human rights, entering private practice, from a small office in Berlin, specialising in private international law. He assisted those trying to leave Germany, including dissidents and Jews. The young Helmuth was noted for his boundless energy and seriousness of purpose. 26
His choices were informed by several early progressive influences. His maternal grandfather, a member of The Inner Temple, had been a notably liberal politician and Chief Justice of South Africa, and his grandmother an early feminist. The family was active in various relief programmes for workers in Silesia during the economic crises of the late 1920s. He mixed in creative circles in Berlin and Vienna, including Arnold Schoenberg and Bertolt Brecht. He was a very charismatic young man, as he appears in 1928 in Vienna. In Austria, he met future wife, Freya Deichmann, also to be a law student. Helmuth’s studies in international law led him to London and Oxford. He visited the League of Nations in Geneva and the Court of International Justice in The Hague. Whenever he could, and especially to the complacent English upper classes, he warned against appeasement of the Nazi regime.
Whenever he could, and especially to the complacent English upper classes, he warned against appeasement of the Nazi regime.
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
He was called to the Bar by The Inner Temple in 1938, having studied the final exam curriculum for two months. He underwent (a short) pupillage in the chambers of John Foster, an international law expert. Helmuth spent time with Lionel Curtis, the founder of Chatham House, and with several American diplomats and journalists. These relationships must have deeply affected him. During the war, he described a dream of being in the Temple and sitting down to work. At great risk, he maintained these contacts.
OVER THE PRECIPICE Helmuth’s choice of practice was courageous at that time. The independent legal profession, and German law itself, had disintegrated after January 1933. Weimar Germany, until then, had a highly developed legal system with a criminal and civil code, dating from 1871 and 1900. The Weimar Constitution of 1919 included all our current familiar human rights protections, and more. Article 102 guaranteed the independence of the judiciary. The Bench was, in broad terms, nationalist – conservative, and complacent about the violent rise of the Nazi movement but applied familiar legal principles. There were two vigorous independent associations of judges. There was an independent Bar Association, founded in 1871, with 15,000 members.
Jewish lawyer disbarred Tilsit, 1933
One-third of all legal scholars were removed from the universities on these grounds. On 21 April 1933, a Federation of National Socialist jurists was formed and the existing Bar Association forcibly dissolved. All independent legal publications were suppressed. All this happened within four months.
On 10 March 1933, a Jewish lawyer, Dr Michael Siegel, was beaten up and paraded through the streets of Munich, stripped of his shoes and trousers. He had reported to the police an attack upon a Jewish businessman’s shop. He had to wear this placard saying, “I will never again complain to the police.”
After June 1933, every graduate Bar candidate had to undergo six weeks training at a ‘community’ camp in Jüterbog near Berlin, “to stimulate their National Socialist sentiment”. One image from this camp was exhibited at the Nuremberg trials. The teachers are merrily showing off a gallows over the parade ground, and there is the Prussian Minister of Justice, Hans Kerrl, without legal qualification. In fact, the scene was deadly serious. A symbol of German statute law was suspended from the gallows. Roland Freisler, the Nazi legal theorist, had declared that national socialist judges “do not need the crutches of statutes”. This was a Nazi legal education, symbolically executing statute law.
Michael Siegel in Munich
Gallows
On 21 March 1933, ‘special courts’ were established to dispense swift justice at lowest cost, with very limited defence rights and no appeals. On 24 March 1933, the ‘Enabling Act’ authorised government by decree, overriding and ending constitutional government. The Confederation of German Judges promptly declared “its full trust” in the regime.
Helmuth himself had to attend this camp. He and a few friends subverted the anti-Semitic lessons with satirical questions. When required to read Nazi literature, they simply played Beethoven very loudly. Ultimately, candidates for Call had to sign on their application form that they had not even been tutored by a Jew.
From early April, Jewish judges and prosecutors were expelled, together with any socialists. They were also refused admission to the Bar or disbarred. Here is one such letter dated 9 June 1933, from the President of the Regional Court, disbarring a lawyer named Finkelstein, in Tilsit, East Prussia. It simply said, “You are erased” (“Geloscht worden”) from the approved list for the local and regional courts.
By July 1933, all other political parties had been dissolved and banned, and a ‘Hereditary Health Court’ was established to enforce compulsory sterilisation for so-called ‘defectives’.
With terrifying speed, all of this was dismantled. On 31 January 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor. On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag parliament building was burned down. The next day, the so-called ‘Reichstag fire decree’ (“…for the protection of the people and the state…”) was issued, annulling constitutional rights and declaring a state of emergency.
Freisler in court
At a national convention of the Bar Federation in October 1933, in Leipzig, 10,000 lawyers took an oath of loyalty to the Führer. The Nazi Party newspaper denounced named lawyers, Jews, journalists and politicians as “Traitors of the People”, which has some resonance today.
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Helmuth von Moltke and the Rule of Law
During their sentences, prisoners could be transferred to the Gestapo or SS, for further detention or execution. Any acquittals or ‘lenient’ sentences could be reviewed. Hitler personally often intervened to insist upon the death penalty, once for an offence of stealing eggs. Overall, it is estimated that 60–80,000 people were sentenced to death by the courts under the Third Reich. They were instruments of terror. By comparison, in fascist Italy, the courts passed 29 death sentences. All of these measures required the close involvement of countless legally qualified civil servants, lawyers and judges for drafting and implementation. In 1938, of all the local Gestapo chiefs, 87 per cent had studied law and 50 per cent had doctorates in law. Hans Frank, executed at Nuremberg for his crimes when governing occupied Poland, was a Doctor of Law, and had been President of the Academy of German Law. Goebbels frankly explained the permitted role of the law and of the courts in a speech in 1942: “While making his decisions, the judge is to proceed less from the law than from the basic idea that the offender is to be eliminated from the community” and, “The idea that the Judge must be convinced of the Defendant’s guilt must be discredited completely.” Judge Max Reichert said of the courts, “What the army is at our borders, our decisions must be within them.” Carl Schmitt, the brilliant Nazi legal and political philosopher, wrote, “The law is there to protect the state from the individual.” It was a ‘through the looking glass’ world.
Leipzig rally
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In 1934, by decree, the Gestapo were authorised to take anyone into ‘protective custody’ for political reasons and, by 1935, were given legal immunity for any of their actions. On 24 April 1934, People’s Courts were established, to try treason and sabotage cases. Three of the five judges were military men. There were no appeals. On 4 June 1937, Ministry of Justice lawyers agreed with the Gestapo upon a standard form of ‘club’, to be used 25 times on the buttocks during interrogations, with a doctor present. By 1938, all Jewish lawyers had been removed from practice. At this time, the Nazi Bar Federation disbarred members for consulting a Jewish doctor, and for arguing political cases too strongly. Two notaries were prosecuted variously for not saluting properly in court and in the streets, for voting the wrong way in a plebiscite, and for buying postcards for 10 pfennigs from a Jewish man.
Two notaries were prosecuted variously for not saluting properly in court and in the streets, for voting the wrong way in a plebiscite, and for buying postcards for 10 pfennigs from a Jewish man. Between 1933 and 1939, principles basic to any recognisable legal system were reversed. Cases were not to be decided by ‘logical reasoning’, but by the ‘feel of the case’. From 1935, article 2 of the Penal Code permitted criminal convictions by analogy and retrospectively, where any act “deserves punishment according to the fundamental idea of a penal law or the sound sentiment of the people… [or] according to the law whose underlying spirit can be most readily applied to the act”.
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There were about 1,900 laws governing the treatment of Jewish people in Germany and the occupied territories. When dictating a telegram, use of the phrase ‘A as in Abraham’ was prohibited. Victor Klemperer recorded in his diaries that he was not allowed to possess a typewriter and could not buy flowers or shaving cream, since Jews were supposed to grow beards. The laws rendering German Jewish people ‘stateless’ in 1941–42 were necessary for the seizure of all their property after their ‘departure’, but also rendered them defenceless against annihilation, as Hannah Arendt and Professor Tim Snyder have pointed out. Very rarely did lawyers resist. A brave Bavarian prosecutor, Josef Hartinger, in 1933 presented an indictment against named SS officers for murders in Dachau concentration camp. This was quickly suppressed, and he was moved to a provincial post. In 1940, one judge, Dr Lothar Kreysigg, issued a criminal summons and an injunction against the head of the ongoing T4 euthanasia programme. He impertinently relied upon the lack of any legal authority for these killings. The proceedings were quietly dropped, and he retired on medical grounds. Significantly, both these men kept their freedom and survived the war. In this environment, Helmuth and Freya made several fateful choices as the war loomed: to continue living in Germany, when they could easily have left; to bring two children into the world, Helmuth Caspar and Konrad; and to continue to try to use the law to protect the weak against a murderous dictatorship.
IN THE WAR With the outbreak of war in 1939, Helmuth was conscripted. He joined the foreign intelligence branch of the German army, the Abwehr, as an international law expert. This would not seem to be fertile territory for his expertise and commitment, but the upper echelons of the Abwehr were riddled with disloyalty and outright Nazi opposition. With a rank equivalent to major, Helmuth was party to the clearest intelligence about military atrocities in the occupied territories of the east. He despaired at his limited influence. In his letters to Freya in later 1941, he expressed his torment: “May I know this and yet sit in my heated flat and have tea? Don’t I thereby become guilty too?… How can anyone know
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these things and walk around free?” He described some reported incidents as “surely the height of bestiality and depravity”. His letters were tormented and sometimes angry. He described a meeting with the army generals as “the murderers’ pit of loyal vassals of the Führer…disgusting toadies…”.
THE KREISAU CIRCLE
He certainly fought to do what he could. Regulations and orders were sent in draft to his department for comment. He sometimes had overnight to respond and organise counterlobbying. “Today,” he reported with some pride in 1939, “I won my case. But it was like winning a victory over a hydra. I chopped off one of the monster’s heads, and 10 new ones have grown in its place.” At this time, priests were being imprisoned for saying prayers for the Jews. One memorandum from Helmuth pleaded for the rights of captured prisoners in the Eastern Territories. This became a significant exhibit at the ‘High Command’ Nuremberg war crimes trial. In the margins, Field Marshal Keitel had written that these rules were “quaint” and “obsolete” and reflected “outmoded notions of chivalric warfare”. Keitel was sentenced to death. Helmuth travelled widely for his work. In June 1943, in the Netherlands, he extracted promises from the military to avert the execution of civilian hostages, which, if kept, saved over 1000 lives. On visits to Turkey, he provided to his contacts a detailed review of the parlous state of Germany, dated 9 July 1943, which survives. In October 1943, he and others warned Danish Jews of plans to transport them to concentration camps. Out of 6000 hunted, most escaped by boat to Sweden, and only 200 were caught. Helmuth was permitted to continue running his small legal practice close to the War Ministry building in central Berlin. In 1940, before the USA entered the war, he met George Kennan, an American diplomat, later a renowned political scientist. Kennan described him as “the greatest person morally, and the largest and most enlightened in his concepts…” that he had met on either side in the war.
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
By 1940, Helmuth was secretly writing about a postwar constitution for a reconstructed Germany. Using his connections, Helmuth cautiously explored the personal views of select individuals. When trust was gained, from the summer of 1940, he introduced like-minded people to wider discussions in secure conditions. Small gatherings occurred mainly in Berlin and Munich. This crystallised into a dissident discussion group, later called the Kreisau Circle, after the von Moltke family seat. Detailed papers planned a postwar decentralised German federation, covering education, agriculture and economics, and the right to resist oppression. Three plenary meetings, each of perhaps 12–14 people, were convened at Kreisau between May 1942 and June 1943. It was a diverse group of conservatives, liberals, socialists, the religious and non- religious, including a banker, Jesuit priests and trade unionists. They tended to foresee a prominent role for the Christian churches in the moral renewal of Germany, but founded upon complete tolerance for race, national and religious difference. In a draft dated 14 June 1943, Helmuth envisioned a special international war crimes tribunal to be convened at the conclusion of the war. The Kreisau Circle is historically recognised as having born real credibility for post-war Germany. The group put out peace feelers, on the basis of a surrender conditional upon the end of the Nazi regime, before Germany was completely destroyed. The Allies would not contemplate this. The risks taken by Helmuth and all participants were formidable. In early 1943, the ‘White Rose’ group of students, including Sophie Scholl, were tried before Judge Freisler in the ‘People’s Court’ and executed by guillotine for distributing disloyal pamphlets in Munich. The BBC was able to broadcast these pamphlets, because Helmuth took them to Sweden and ensured they reached the British authorities.
Kreisau Estate
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Helmuth von Moltke and the Rule of Law
DETENTION AND TRIAL Helmuth was arrested by the Gestapo on 19 January 1944 and detained ‘under investigation’ at Ravensbrück concentration camp. He had apparently warned a friend of impending arrest. At least he had an impeccable alibi for the months leading up to the unsuccessful ‘Stauffenberg’ bomb attempt upon Hitler’s life on 20 July 1944. However, eight of those plotters had been involved in the Kreisau Circle, and there were personal connections to Helmuth. The subsequent frenzy of 7000 arrests, with mass executions, broke the secrecy of the group. On 28 September 1944, Helmuth was transferred to Tegel prison, Berlin, for deeper investigation and ultimately for trial. By extraordinary chance, the prison chaplain at Tegel was Harald Poelchau. He had attended meetings of the Kreisau Circle and was a religious socialist. With his courageous help, for the next four months, the last of Helmuth’s life, a near daily exchange of 150 secret and frank letters took place with his wife, Freya. She kept them hidden from the Gestapo in the estate beehives at Kreisau. They survived the war. They are almost unbearably moving to read. They struggled between the faintest hope of clemency and preparing emotionally and spiritually for execution.
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Harald Poelchau
In the last letters to his two sons, then aged five and three, Helmuth explained the values behind his sacrifice: “Throughout an entire life, even at school, I have fought against…arrogance and lack of respect for others, [and] intolerance…excessive nationalism, [and] racial persecution…”
In October 1944, Helmut was served with his arrest warrant, charging him with undermining the war effort, preparation for high treason, and aiding and abetting the enemy. The conduct alleged in the indictment was largely true, and indeed the Gestapo never discovered the more ‘subversive’ written Kreisau papers.
Freya was allowed five face-to-face visits in this time too. She had to travel 250 miles each way from Kreisau most weekends, leaving her children and the running of the estate, as Germany was crumbling. As the trial approached, the Russian front was moving much closer. She ran extraordinary risks.
During 1943, with defeat increasingly likely, the Kreisau Group simply conducted an honest debate about the postwar future. This was after all the job of military intelligence, the Abwehr. Even the prosecutor made clear that Helmuth had rejected any association with the Stauffenberg plot.
Prison conditions were harsh, with permanent cell lighting, and Helmuth was shackled most of the day. Apart from this direct record of their immense courage, the letters do record Helmuth’s experience of the trial. It took place before Judge Roland Freisler, who even then was notorious. Though a fanatic, Freisler was also a very clever jurist. He became President of the People’s Courts in 1942. His aggressive humiliation of the accused shamed even the Nazi leadership, for whom this was an “unnecessary excess’’. According to his own figures for 1943, 50 per cent of the accused or 1662 people were sentenced to death by the six ‘Senates’ of the People’s Court. In Freisler’s First Senate, this reached 58 per cent. Very few indeed were acquitted.
His trial before the so-called ‘People’s Court’ on 9 January and 10 January 1945 was held before a trusted audience. It was very dramatic. Here is Helmuth arguing his case and arguing for his life. He put his legal training to good use. He defiantly faced Judge Freisler, justifying his conduct. There was no escape from Freisler’s interpretation of the law. He held, “Anyone who objects to acts of violence, but prepares for the eventuality that another [the enemy] removes the government by force, thereby engages in preparation for high treason.” After the inevitable death sentence, Helmuth was proud that he had forced the judge only to convict him for his ideas, and not for any actions. “We’re being hanged for having thought together,” he wrote.
A letter from Helmuth to Freya
Helmuth von Moltke in court
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Helmuth maintained his wry sense of humour throughout, describing his trial as a “C minus” death sentence case. Helmuth’s family name gave Freya various privileged faceto-face meetings with high officials. The more civilised these conversations about clemency were, the more surreal; but they were ultimately fruitless. Helmuth was executed on 23 January 1945 and went to his fate with great serenity. Less than two weeks later, on 3 February 1945, an air raid on Berlin killed Judge Freisler, during the court day. Even colleagues recorded that no one mourned his passing. Freya and her sons survived the war. Ultimately, the family settled in Vermont. The precious letters, 1600 of them from 1929–1945, were secured and kept with them. Freya immediately started to educate the world about the duty to resist oppression and discrimination of all kinds. She frequently wrote and gave lectures in Germany and Poland. She survived until 2010, when 98 years old. Understandably, the more intimate, later letters from prison were only recently published.
Mock trial
Finally, we must acknowledge that Helmuth was in an unusually privileged position, by contrast with the many millions of dehumanised Nazi victims. His significance lies in his choice to risk his life, because he could not put aside his values. Tragically, he paid the ultimate price. The Inner Temple is honoured to be connected across three generations with the von Moltke family.
His significance lies in his choice to risk his life, because he could not put aside his values. We are all left with a chilling and timely reminder of how fragile the ‘rule of law’ can be. Let us ensure that we never let the example of Helmuth and Freya fade from our memories. Patrick O’Connor QC Doughty Street Chambers
©P O’C QC 2021
Letters to Freya: 1939–1945: A Witness Against Hitler, edited and translated by Beate Ruhm von Oppen (Collins Harvill, 1991) Freya von Moltke in 1949
AFTERMATH Helmuth and his fellow dissidents hoped for the moral regeneration of post-war Germany. They required at least a clean break with the Nazi regime and legal accountability for war crimes.
Last Letters: The Prison Correspondence, 1944–1945: edited by Helmuth Caspar von Moltke, Dorothea von Moltke and Johannes von Moltke (NYRB, 2019) For the full video recording of this talk: innertemple.org.uk/vonmoltke
There was anything but a ‘clean break’. The West German legal and political systems remained deeply compromised by former Nazis. Their hopes for accountability to the law, in terms of numbers prosecuted, convictions and sentences, were met only to a very limited extent. At the so-called ‘Justice’ trial, in 1947, ten lawyers, judges and civil servants were variously convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity, by their abuse of the ‘law’. In principle therefore, such lawyers can be criminally liable for the direct consequences of their work. Rather more happily, the Polish and German prime ministers held a reconciliation service at Kreisau estate on 12 November 1989, only three days after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Kreisau was instinctively recognised as a symbolic location. A ‘New Kreisau’ arose, with the strong support of the von Moltke family. Now, about 5,000 young people a year attend to learn about international law and current threats to democracy. A proud place in history is secure. In 2007, at a memorial service for the centenary of Helmuth’s birth, in Freya’s presence, Chancellor Angela Merkel described Helmuth as “a symbol of European courage”.
Angela Merkel with Freya von Moltke
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Post-Lockdown Review: the Junior Junior Bar on the Frontline
POST-LOCKDOWN REVIEW:
THE JUNIOR JUNIOR BAR ON THE FRONTLINE By Lily Walker-Parr, 5RB, and Oliver May, No 5 Barristers Chambers
The last year has been an incredibly challenging time for the Bar as a whole, but it is difficult to imagine a more challenging time to practise at the most junior end. Junior barristers (and in particular those funded by legal aid work) play an essential role in our legal system. ‘Junior juniors’ tend to deal with urgent matters, meet lay clients on a near daily basis, and travel significant distances on public transport. All of this is rewarded by an income highly dependent on a healthy diet of often-low-paying work.
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As the pandemic took hold in March 2020, a picture quickly emerged of widespread financial uncertainty for barristers owing to fears about chambers’ stability and allocation of work. The cohort ineligible for the government’s selfemployed scheme, which included the very newest practitioners, felt these fears most acutely. This was coupled with health and safety concerns of those compelled to attend court in person – whether due to the nature of the hearing, a court estate unprepared for widespread remote hearings, financial concerns or, for many pupils, fear (unfounded or not) of jeopardising tenancy decisions. Most significant was the effect of the pandemic on mental health. Forty-five per cent of pupils reported that the pandemic presented a significant challenge to their wellbeing, and one can only assume that this is reflected across the Bar as a whole. The support and collegiality enjoyed by our small but sociable profession, formerly the most robust mitigant of well being concerns, was significantly undermined when it was forced behind a veneer of Zoom and Microsoft Teams. (We can all agree that lunch with a colleague or a pint after a hard day in court just cannot be replicated online.) As life begins its slow ascent to normality (or, at least, the ‘new normal’), it is important to reflect upon how the profession supported its most vulnerable members. A recent survey shines a positive light on chambers’ efforts to provide the best training and supervision possible in the circumstances, and this deserves to be recognised as no mean feat. The Young Bar Committee of the Bar Council championed – and continues to champion – the issues affecting the junior Bar. The financial lifeline offered by the Inns and other organisations such as the Barristers’ Benevolent Association is also to be applauded. However, there is still work to do: many junior practitioners are still recovering financially; new tenants are only just meeting colleagues and belatedly settling into life in chambers; and all are trying to develop their embryonic practices, which, to date, have felt the impact of months of missed networking and in-person court opportunities. We have asked junior practitioners what barriers they faced, what they did to overcome them, and who or what helped them along the way. It is important that we learn from these experiences – the good, bad and ugly – so that we may grow as a profession, and perhaps so that we are better prepared should this ever happen again. These are their stories.
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TIERNAN FITZGIBBON, FIVE PAPER
Call – 2018 Practice Area – Civil Circuit – South-East We all have a list of what the worst things about lockdown were. The interminable walks. The Great Flour Shortage of 2020. Trying to figure out whether bumping elbows, kicking feet or waving manically was the best way of greeting people. For some, that list also includes remote hearings. I appreciate there are concerns regarding the gravitas of the judicial process being lost, technological unfairness to litigants in person and the myriad other concerns that have been raised. That is not to say, however, that there are not benefits too and, as a junior barrister, I could not be more in favour of remote hearings for precisely one reason: 2 minutes and 40 seconds. That is my current shortest hearing in lockdown. In normal times, that would have involved more than five hours of travel and my entire day. That it was being held remotely meant that I could attend from the comfort of home, could make another hearing (and so helping make the court system work more efficiently) and get on with the rest of my (never-ending) workload. So, yes, remote hearings do have their issues. But as a plea from the junior Bar to those in charge of listing, recognise the issues with remote hearings but work to make them better, rather than getting rid of them entirely. They are time- and cost-efficient for the courts, for the clients and especially for the barristers appearing in front of you.
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KATE TEMPLE-MABE, 7BR
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Call – 2018 Practice Areas – Civil, Family and Crime Circuit – Midlands and South-East
Call – 2019 Practice Area – Family Circuit – South-East
As some colleagues welcome a new dawn of remote everything, I have found myself looking forward to at least a partial return to ‘in person’. I have found working as a junior junior during the pandemic an isolating and sometimes lonely experience. I miss the camaraderie of the robing room, the Inn, and the local pub or restaurant – spaces for building connections and sharing support with my colleagues. It has been difficult to grow a professional network in the absence of real-life events and seminars, and without being able to meet instructing solicitors in the flesh. I worry my fledgling advocacy skills have suffered from a toocomfy, suit-only-on-the-top-half, always-sitting-down approach: one minute you’re having a cup of tea on the couch, and the next you are in the Crown Court with your living room or kitchen clearly on display behind you, without the added gravitas of a wig and gown. I have not been doing the job I thought I would be doing, in a practical sense. I’m looking forward to having that back.
There are some positives to my pandemic pupillage. Many of the most fear-inducing aspects of a ‘normal’ pupillage have fallen away: I have not had to navigate the politics of chambers parties; I have not spent long train journeys desperately trying to make engaging small talk; and I had the benefit of knowing that, if needed, I could cry from the comfort of my own home after my first court appearance. Of course, there have been times where the pandemic has got in the way. I can count on two hands the number of times I have set foot in a court building this year. While this means I have saved money on travel, I have no doubt lost out on countless learning opportunities that my predecessors took for granted. Overall, I feel content that I have had a well-rounded experience that has provided the necessary preparation for a career as a barrister. However, as decision day fast approaches, I am increasingly conscious that it may be harder to win a popularity contest of yes/no votes when most of the voters have only ‘met’ you as a small, silent square on their computer screen.
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Post-Lockdown Review: the Junior Junior Bar on the Frontline
HELENA SPECTOR, RED LION
MALVIKA JAGANMOHAN, ST IVES
Call – 2019 Practice Area – Crime Circuit – South-East
Call – 2017 Practice Area – Family Circuit – Midlands
I started on my feet one week before the national lockdown. Although my co-pupils and I were given the option of not going to court and were not pressurised either way, we all decided to keep going. Much has been written about the impact on COVID-19 on the court system in general, but little has been written about the failures of the magistrates’ court system to deal with the pandemic administratively. The early months of the pandemic were chaotic. Cases were adjourned, relisted, listed elsewhere or simply removed from lists overnight, with no notice. London magistrates’ courts cannot be contacted via telephone and emails were misplaced in the generic inboxes that serve several courts. We would often be sent to a court and travel across London entirely pointlessly. On other days, a court would list in excess of 20 cases and would sit past 20.00. I was enormously supported by my chambers, my co-pupils and other junior barristers, and many of my experiences of those early hearings were positive and encouraging. But the system was contingent on the goodwill, flexibility and commitment of junior barristers and defence solicitors going to court for £50 on the off-chance their matter would be heard. That said, I learned a lot about diplomacy in my daily negotiations with the North London Magistrates’ Court listings office.
I’ve been a tenant in chambers for nearly 18 months. Fourteen of those months have been during a global pandemic. Did I expect my career at the Bar to start off like this? No. How do I feel about it? Conflicted. There are, of course, some pros. Four-hour round trips to get to court are now the exception rather than the rule, and I actually have the time to sleep for more than a few hours every day rather than stumbling home late and straight into the next day’s brief. I can roll out of bed shortly before a video hearing and pop a shirt on (the trackies stay though, of course). For a telephone hearing, I do not need to roll out of bed at all. So, it is not all bad. But when I came to the Bar, this is not what I imagined being a barrister would be like. I did not expect to be advising clients about the prospect of their children being removed over the phone. I did not expect to be able to hear them sobbing on a remote link, feeling helpless to reassure them from a distance. I did not expect to be sitting in a conference room, unable to make out their facial expressions because they are wearing a mask. I did not expect to be making submissions on a blurry video connection where each point arrives a couple of minutes after I said it. I did not expect to be spending most of my time alone, isolated from my peers and colleagues. Eighteen months in, I still struggle to feel like a barrister. I want to be able to wander into chambers after a difficult day at court and wail to my room-mates about the judge. I want to be able to look my clients in the eye before huge decisions are made about their lives. I want to be able to stand up in court and learn to become like the advocates I had admired from afar, not a fuzzy image on a screen. I would like that back, please.
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OSCAR DAVIES, LAMB CHAMBERS
Call – 2019 Practice Area – Crime Circuit – South-East
Call – 2018 Practice Area – Civil Circuit – South-East
At the start of the first lockdown, I had been on my feet two weeks. I carried on attending court through the first lockdown. The workload was light – a few times a week, I would go to a magistrates’ court to do a remand hearing for a defendant who needed representation in person. As the lockdown wore on and more clients were able to be represented remotely, I would often be in court watching others appear over the new Cloud Video Platform (CVP) to make a bail application or plea in mitigation. I quickly lost count of the number times I saw a lay bench nod through their submissions, never telling the defence advocate they could barely hear half of what was being said because of a bad link. Technology may have kept defendants moving through the courts, but that is not the same as ‘the wheels of justice continuing to turn’. My impression, during the pandemic and since, is that too many lay justices and legal advisors seem not to know the difference. My hope for the coming months is that I can continue to build my practice from this highly unusual start.
My second six started just as lockdown was fully implemented (February 2020). This meant that I almost got no ‘on my feet’ advocacy experience during a time when it was crucial. This was challenging for obvious reasons but compounded when I was not taken on at the end of pupillage.
RESOURCES: Inner Temple Hardship funds for pupils and first-year practitioners: www.innertemple.org.uk/news/covid-19-schemefor-pupils-and-first-year-tenants/ Inner Temple Hardship Fund for members who do not qualify for SEISS: www.innertemple.org.uk/news/covid-19-schemefor-hardship-outside-the-terms-of-seiss/ Mental Health and Wellbeing at the Bar: wellbeingatthebar.org.uk Bar Council Pupillage Helpline: PupilHelpline@BarCouncil.org.uk Online Training for Young Barristers: ybc@barcouncil.org.uk Bar Council Coronavirus Advice and Updates: www.barcouncil.org.uk/useful-information/ coronavirus-advice-and-updates.html Bar Council Coronavirus Queries: C19WG@barcouncil.org.uk Government COVID-19 Guidance: gov.uk/coronavirus
I then did a third six starting in October 2020 and, fortunately, at this point I had five to eight hearings per week, although most of these were conducted virtually. I was able to show my skills and was taken on as a tenant at Lamb Chambers a month early. When I was taken on in February 2021, I elected to have my name written on chambers’ board as ‘Mx Oscar Davies’, which uses a gender-neutral honorific. As someone who is non-binary, this seemed the most appropriate form to include my name, amongst ‘Mr’ ‘Ms’ ‘Miss’ and ‘Dr’. Given that this may have been the first time that ‘Mx’ was used on a chambers’ board, it became a ‘legal first’ and was reported in The Times, Reuters and Legal Cheek. Though to me it is somewhat of an arbitrary detail, I do think it is important that there is visibility at the Bar of people from all walks of life. We should try to reflect the public we represent. Given that we were still in lockdown and I was not physically in chambers much, I had no idea how it would be received by the profession and my new colleagues, many of whom I have still not met. Fortunately, the response thus far has been (generally) positive, and I am grateful to my peers and the Bar more broadly for supporting me. Now I am enjoying getting on with practice as lockdown lifts and dealing with my (sometimes hectic) diary! An unexpected positive outcome of the pandemic is that I have had the time to create and develop my Instagram (@nonbinarybarrister), where I share insights on trans/non-binary law. Lily Walker-Parr and Oliver May
SOURCES: www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/81-of-chambers-will-foldwithin-a-year-bar-council-survey-finds/5103761.article www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/self-employed-package-woefullyinsufficient-say-junior-barristers/5103687.article COVID19 Survey of Pupils, the Bar Council, March 2021
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Ivy Williams
IVY WILLIAMS In this centenary anniversary year of her Call to the Bar, Ivy Williams is seen through the eyes of her distant cousin, Bridget Wheeler.
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Ivy Williams © Courtesy of Bridget Wheeler
On the evening of 10 May 1922, Ivy Williams was called to the Bar by The Inner Temple. So ended the struggle for admission to the profession by women that has been well documented in this publication by Dr Judith Bourne. Her professional life has also been the subject of scholarly work by Dr Caroline Morris to whom I am indebted for rekindling my intention to write a fuller biography of Ivy. Ivy and I are cousins twice removed. In reviewing her accomplishments, I have had recourse not only to such public domain information as is available but also to family recollections and photographs, and the letters book of my great uncle Percy Prior, who acted for Ivy as her solicitor. Ivy and I share a common great- (great again, in my case) grandfather. Adin Williams, modestly described as a mercer in Oxford, was rather more than that. He was at some time election agent to Gladstone, a mover and shaker in local Oxford politics, a committee member for the Oxford and Salisbury railway line, an investor in property, possibly a man with insufficient time to spend with his family, a liberal to the core, fervent Congregationalist, guardian of the poor, an Oxford Street commissioner, regular litigant for the rights of citizens, and strong supporter of education for women. Ivy referred to him warmly in her speech making. Of significance, Ivy never met him. Her father took his young family away from Oxford after an unorthodox marriage to the family’s (very) young maid and only returned full-time to Oxford after his death in 1876; Ivy was born the following year. All her understanding of her grandfather’s views and passions came from her father.
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To me, there was in context a certain inevitability of that night in May 1922, as if Ivy’s whole life had been directed towards that moment. In an interview that she had given reported in the Dundee Evening Post inter alia as long before as 1 April 1904, she stated: “Like my brother, the late Mr Winter Williams, who was called to the Bar at Inner Temple in 1899, I have been educated expressly for the legal profession, and have been studying law continuously for eight years…” (She goes on to describe her unique qualification from both Oxford and London universities and describes the exams she has already passed as more challenging than those of the Bar.) Ivy’s life in 1904 seemed to be heading directly towards a career in law, and one as an advocate. At 27, she was already an outstanding student and had expressed her object in becoming a barrister to be a poor man’s lawyer and set up a type of legal dispensary. She had been described in 1903 as a “doughty champion” entering the ranks and all looked set for a predictable clash with the establishment, in respect of which she had already declared herself willing to practise outside the system and to take the matter to parliament if need be. The concept of acting outside the profession was not new – there existed at Lincoln’s Inn at least the possibility of acting ‘under the Bar’; Eliza Orme had practised as an unqualified person and Maria Rye had trained female law clerks from a legal stationers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. What Ivy seemed to have in mind was a more public role, and wry comment at the time speculated as to how she could participate in a hearing without the necessary Call.
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What is it that transpired to bring together all the necessary ingredients for the country’s first woman barrister? Nature and nurture. First, she was brought up in Oxford in an intellectually aspirant and liberal family. She rubbed shoulders with the great minds of the day. It was a time of realisation that women could and should take their own place in society. Not only that, she was surrounded by ambitious and pioneering family members – if you like, the gene pool was excellent. Her father was a local solicitor who extended his business into banking and property. He was a vocal critic of the government. Her brother, Winter, was called by The Inner Temple and was poised on the brink of a career in law and politics before his early death. Her cousins, the Cousins family, boasted women doctors and missionaries, including Constance Cousins (whose correspondence with Ivy and others survives), who crossed from India into Bhutan walking through the mountains to quell an outbreak of cholera – the first white woman to visit that country. Her relative John Williams was martyred in Erromango, having been a prominent missionary. Another relative, Joshua Williams QC, was a leading property lawyer of his day.
To me there was in context a certain inevitability of that night in May 1922, as if Ivy’s whole life had been directed towards that moment. She had the brain power and suitable connections. She had not only passed her various examinations with distinction, but also she had fully engaged in the legal process. In June 1900, she had been elected President of the Women’s Debating Society at Oxford, and she wrote in a landmark debate at Lincoln’s Inn in 1904, where she tempered support for the admission of women to the profession and suggested that there be a requirement that candidates hold a degree in law. She had little fear of public speaking: she was an avid supporter of the temperance movement and spoke regularly at meetings, she chaired various local committees, and spoke at Congregationalist meetings. She attended Liberal Party meetings and mixed with the likes of the renowned pacifist Lady Ottoline Morrell. And she had money. She was a benefactor. She had no need to earn, and never married; her course seemed set. In spite of this, Ivy’s progress stalled after the early wave of publicity at the turn of the century. Because it stalled, it ultimately positioned her perfectly in 1922 to become the first woman called. In reality, there is no reason why Ivy’s heralded (but unfulfilled) attempt to break down the barriers in the early Noughties would have been any more successful than the handful of other candidates who fell at that hurdle – it was
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
only with the passing of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act in 1919 that the way was cleared. The passage of time however, made the event largely token, as by then she had settled into an academic career, and was happier in the role of enabler rather than the disrupter she had promised to be in her younger days. By 1922, she had given up all hope of practice.
She rubbed shoulders with the great minds of the day. It was a time of realisation that women could and should take their own place in society. What happened after 1904 to set her back from what looked set to be a trailblazing career? Perhaps, a number of things. Her brother, whom she adored, had first a serious accident at a factory in Cowley and then was struck with a fatal infection and died suddenly in 1903. Her mother was too distraught to attend the funeral and Ivy attended with her father, who was himself already unwell. She spent time with her ailing father and mother in 1904 hoping to find a cure, from trips to the mud baths in Germany and to the sea in Bournemouth, but to no avail. Her father died in September 1904. Before his death, he had transferred property to her, and much of her time was thereafter consumed with looking after her mother, running down the various businesses her father had, and administering the bequests he made to the church. Her own health – about which she seems to have been particularly anxious – was not good, and she claimed it had prevented her from doing anything for some time. So much so that she withdrew from her parish council in 1909 on the basis of poor health, and sold her horse, carriage and sidesaddle on doctor’s advice. Her grandfather’s will had been challenged in court and its final administration took 40 years to complete. In short, there was much to distract her at home. This was all shortly followed by the First World War and then the Spanish flu. In this period, her life was one of service to the local community and relentless downsizing and gifting of her not insignificant inheritance to the University (in the form of scholarships in honour of her brother and property to house university women) and to the Radcliffe Infirmary. Then her mother died in 1920.
“Like my brother, the late Mr Winter Williams, who was called to the Bar at Inner Temple in 1899, I have been educated expressly for the legal profession, and have been studying law continuously for eight years…” (She goes on to describe her unique qualification from both Oxford and London universities and describes the exams she has already passed as more challenging than those of the Bar.)
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Ivy Williams
It was only after being freed from family commitments that Ivy seems to have been able to recast her course. With the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919, she was able to join The Inner Temple in 1920, having performed magnificently in the Bar exams (having the advantage of being able to prepare under the tutelage of a professional Bar tutor, Cuthbert Spurling). She was able to seek (and obtain) the discretionary exemption from some dining obligations, and so head the queue of pending female applicants for Call. The rest, as they say, is history.
She was a woman of quiet energy and practicality, qualities she respected in others. When she became blind in her later days – a family weakness that my great-aunt Cordelia also inherited – she dealt with it pragmatically. I can remember the huge Braille books she created that my great-aunt stored and took great pleasure from. Unafraid of hard work, she seems basically to have reinvented the wheel, more smoothly and more efficiently, with her Braille primer.
What of Ivy the woman? I have often wondered if she might have become a serious suffragette. There were the rallying cries of 1903, her lifelong friendship with the militant suffragette Nora MacMunn, and her liberal speech. However, she seems to have been wary of extremism, stemming perhaps from her background of political expediency. Apart from an absence from the 1911 census (a protest abstention by many supporters of women’s suffrage), her espousal of the cause seems to have been intellectual only. Possibly this made her an acceptable candidate for governmental roles such as the technical representative to the conference at The Hague in 1930 and her appointment to the Aliens Deportation Advisory Committee in 1932.
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There has been gentle speculation about her sexuality. Like many in her family, she never married and kept a household of unmarried women. In 1939, she was living not only with Nora MacMunn, but also with her housekeeper and Alice Rylance – a retired, elderly missionary who was possibly a contact through the Cousins family. Somewhat surprisingly, in 1920, she worked with Nevill Forbes to contribute to a Russian translation of the works of Garshin. Nevill, a brilliant academic who eventually took his own life, was known to be gay. Whether Ivy was aware of this, or whether she was making a small stand of solidarity, is impossible to fathom. My own feeling is that she was probably too busy and too committed to enabling others to succeed to be involved in anything other than intellectual friendships. Family recollection and letters speak to the immense pride felt by her relatives for her. She impressed them all. She was consulted not only on financial or legal matters, but also on how to bring up children. Her cousins – mostly Oxford graduates – were by and large gentle, unworldly people who held her in complete awe. A family member remembers that she would visit often to offer advice. Sometimes she did not keep appointments, but there was never any complaint. She walked with a customary limp from a skiing accident and was regularly taking extensive cures for perceived poor health. Her manner was remembered as brusque (although her letters could be very affectionate), but she was never censured for it.
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She was a woman of quiet energy and practicality, qualities she respected in others. When she became blind in her later days … she dealt with it pragmatically. A small sense of sadness is that the almost missionary zeal with which she embraced her faith in her younger years seemed to have weakened as she aged. Her will bequeathed to family members and friends only. She called for her body to be cremated and no commemorative stone marks her passing. So, cousin Ivy is remembered chiefly for being the first woman to be called by the first Inn of Court to Call women. She was also amongst the first women awarded degrees at Oxford University, the first woman to be awarded the degree of Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford, and the first woman to teach law at an English university. All great achievements, but perhaps given the times changing after the war, and given her preparation, inevitable and slightly token. Both Baroness Heather Hallett and Baroness Ruth Deech claim her as one of their heroines, which underlines the inspiration she gives to others. Did she appreciate the way in which women would be embraced by the legal community? She did foresee the role women would rise to play in the legal landscape when she foresaw the possibility (“not for a very long time”) of women judges. I often wonder if she would consider that now, a hundred years later, adequate progress has been made. She certainly envisaged the role of female barristers in the short term as advocates for women and children, in much the way that female doctors initially largely filled such a role – and possibly still do. In this, she would probably be rewarded by the significant presence at all levels of women in the family courts. Would she have been as impressed by the representation of women more generally in the upper echelons of the professions? Bridget Wheeler
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THE FIRE COURTS Professor Jay Tidmarsh (Notre Dame Law School) in conversation via webinar with Master Donald Cryan for the First Selden Society and the Inns of Court Annual Lecture held on Wednesday 21 October 2020
The Great Fire of London (1666) © Painting by Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg, circa 1797
T Donald Cryan: The idea of having this webinar on the Fire Court was conceived at about the same time as the terrible fire at Grenfell tower in West London. Many, many lives were lost. Little did we know then that there would be fire followed by plague, in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic. In many ways, the situation which has arisen is rather like the situation that existed when the Fire Courts came into being in 1666. Jay, perhaps you could paint a picture for us of what was happening in London in 1666? Jay Tidmarsh: I would say that the situation in London is grim, especially after the fire. It is not that there isn’t a willingness to rebuild the City of London, but there are financial and legal impediments to do so. But London was rebuilt, and I think it is in no small measure because of the operations of the Fire Court. Then, of course, it was plague and then fire. Now it is fire and then plague. DC: Can we start by understanding what London was like after the Great Plague, and the period leading up to the fire? During the COVID-19 lockdown, if you went into the city, it was virtually empty. Might that be a reasonable comparison to how it was in 1666? JT: I think there are some comparisons. The Great Plague begins in London in April 1665. It has more or less run its course by March of 1666, but it is not unreasonable to think that as much as a quarter of the City of London died between 1665 and 1666. The City of London itself was teetering on the brink of financial ruin at this time. Its guild system, its ability to control trade in the metropolitan area, was collapsing. Roughly a quarter of its revenues came from rents, and the rental market had plummeted as a result of the plague. Then came the Great Fire.
DC: A Great Fire like that could never have come at a good time, but it seems that it could hardly have come at a worse time? JT: I think that is right. The Great Fire’s devastation of this wonderful medieval city was nearly complete. The fire destroys about 13,000 buildings. The Royal Exchange, the Customs House, most of the churches, many of the other buildings in the city are gone. The fire burns all the way down to the Inner Temple, where the Duke of York and his intrepid band of sailors fortunately saves the Inner Temple from destruction.
The Great Fire’s devastation of this wonderful medieval city was nearly complete. The fire destroys about 13,000 buildings. The Royal Exchange, the Customs House, most of the churches, many of the other buildings in the city are gone. The fire burns all the way down to the Inner Temple, where the Duke of York and his intrepid band of sailors fortunately saves the Inner Temple from destruction.
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The Fire Courts
His Honour Donald Cryan (Hon) LL.D
I want to focus on one particular aspect of why this was such a catastrophic fire. There are limited opportunities for people who have money to invest in instruments that might pay a reasonable rate of return. If you wanted a safer kind of an investment, the best way was to invest in property. You would find a property, you would lease it, then you would turn around and sublease it to someone, either for an increased rack rent so that you would get a stream of income guaranteed over a number of years, or maybe you would just take a large payment at the beginning. On top of that, leases were used as a form of security against mortgages. They were used to create an early form of an annuity in some instances. Much of the wealth of England is tied up in these properties, all at a time when England is at war and Charles needs a lot of money, and he needs it quickly.
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DC: Presumably, there were other vested interests as well as Charles who were very anxious to see this phoenix rise from the ashes as quickly as possible. But where do you start when you are faced with so much devastation? JT: Many people have a vested interest in rebuilding as quickly as possible. But the difficulty is really not so much with the desire to rebuild; it’s with the practicalities financially. One of the difficulties is when the decision is finally taken to rebuild London on more or less on the same footprint with somewhat wider streets and brick buildings and so forth. Where does the money come from to compensate the property owners who lose some property in the process of rebuilding? In addition to that, we have this rabbit’s warren of property interests that need to be cut through. And this is where law turns out to be particularly unhelpful, because nearly every one of these leases and subleases that have been executed contains a covenant, and that covenant requires the tenant to repair and rebuild the property should anything occur, including a fire. Ultimately, it falls upon the tenants in occupation to be the ones to rebuild the property. If I am a landlord and you are a tenant, you have very little reason to want to rebuild the property. You are going to be required to rebuild a property in brick – a much better property than the property before – and if you’ve only got perhaps two or three years left on your lease, you have little incentive to rebuild that property, when I’m going to be the ultimate beneficiary of most of the reconstruction that you’ve done. DC: As I understand it, the reconstruction under the Rebuilding Act required serious investment in terms of rebuilding in brick and in accordance with the building regulations that were designed to reduce the risk of fire in the future. What was going to provide the tenants with the incentive and indeed the means for rebuilding in accordance with the new legislation?
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JT: The Rebuilding Act sets the basic template for the modern construction in London. The Fire Disputes Act then establishes the Fire Court to resolve disputes between landlords and tenants – all with the goal of rebuilding the city as quickly as possible. The wonderful thing about the legislation with respect to the Fire Court is that it actually provides for a system of shared responsibility. The Disputes Act creates this court composed of the 12 common law judges, any three of whom sitting together can constitute a court, and it tells the judges: “You figure out ways to change the lease structures of the parties, so that the parties have an incentive to rebuild.” The legislation allows this Fire Court to extend leases by up to 40 years. In addition, the court was allowed to lower the rent to give you as a tenant an incentive to rebuild the property. The Court is in essence built on a principle of sharing the loss between the tenant and the landlord. DC: What was the process in the Fire Court that was different from the courts of Common Law and equity? JT: The thing that was radical about this court was that it operated ‘sine forma et figura judicii’ (‘without the form and figures of the law or judicial system’), which I think better translates as ‘summarily’. And that is exactly the way that the Court worked. It was an extraordinarily informal process. A petition would be filed, parties would be summoned, and there would be a hearing before the judges. The case is typically resolved on that same day. The judges agreed to do this work pro bono or gratis. DC: We learned that London begins to rebuild very quickly. Did the Fire Court go through the bulk of the work in the early years and then just park the difficult cases until later? JT: We do know something about these cases because we still have the records of the Court. The Court is often not adjudicating these disputes. Oftentimes, it is acting as a mediator, trying to convince the parties of a fair resolution. In addition, a lot of the parties came to the court with the agreement already settled. All they were doing is asking the Court, “Would you please bless this agreement that we’ve already come to out of court?” DC: On a day-to-day basis, how did the court function? Where did it sit? JT: It sat at Clifford’s Inn, right at the edge of where the fire stopped. The Fire Court was a rather simple court. There was no requirement that anyone come with counsel and, indeed, in more of the earlier cases than not, people would appear without counsel. Eventually there develops a Bar around the Fire Court. And one thing that I get a sense of is how important the Bar was to the functioning of the Court. The professionalised Fire Court Bar helps the Court to do its business and brings more people to the table, willing to mediate a solution, rather than to have the Court try to adjudicate a dispute with unwilling parties.
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Professor Jay Tidmarsh
The professionalised Fire Court Bar helps the Court to do its business and brings more people to the table, willing to mediate a solution, rather than to have the Court try to adjudicate a dispute with unwilling parties. DC: Can you give us an example of a typical case that would give us a feel for what was happening? JT: There are so many differences it is almost impossible to pick a representative case, so I randomly picked out a case brought by the Haberdashers against someone named Farrington, as well as two other tenants on the property. This is a somewhat unusual case because it describes the property that was burned down as a “capital messuage”. In other words, one of the principal houses in London. The original lease on the property was in 1648 for 29 years. There are also separate leases to another person to run what is called the Golden Fleece and to someone else for a shop. The lease to Farrington is for £40 per year; for the Golden Fleece, it was £34 a year; for the shop, it was £26 a year. After much negotiation back and forth, the Haberdashers agree with the tenants that they will take £25 from Farrington for the capital messuage, as well as £20 from the other two for the Golden Fleece and the shop. The lease is extended to 61 more years, with the Haberdashers receiving £65 per year. DC: There was a reduction of £35 a year, but over a very long time. And at that point, was it not a limitation of 40 years on the court as to the amount of time it could extend leases? JT: Yes, by statute, it was allowed to extend the lease by 40 years. There were rare cases, and this just happens to have been one of them, where even before it is given the power to extend leases by 60 years in subsequent legislation, the Court nonetheless does so. I suspect that the Court feels that it has the ability to order a longer lease because the parties ultimately agreed this deal. DC: It was also manifestly achieving the paramount objective of the court – to get on and get it done. JT: Case after case recites the purpose of this legislation is to adjust the differences between landlord and tenant, to find the most rapid means of trying to rebuild the City of London. The court was always looking for who could best rebuild this property and then setting up an incentive structure to make that happen. So, if it were the landlord who could build more quickly, then sometimes the tenant would be required to make a contribution to the landlord. If, on the other hand, the tenant was the one who really wanted to rebuild the property, then the landlord would be required to give some incentive to the tenant by reducing the rent and by extending the term of the lease.
DC: The judges seem to be rather more mediators and arbitrators than one might normally have expected in the 17th century. What were the criteria that the judges were able to use when making their decisions? How would the judges know by how much to reduce the rent? JT: I have never been able to determine precisely what principle guided the Fire Court judges. However, there is a book written by Stephen Primatt, containing charts for what appropriate rents would be, and how to value rents. My guess is if you were to plot the way in which the Fire Court works in those cases in which it must make a decision against what is in going on Primatt’s book, you would probably find some correlation. To the extent there’s guidance, I think it is coming out of that treatise; it is not coming from the legislation. DC: I would like to move on to considering what lessons we might draw from the Fire Courts for the present day, and the situation we find ourselves in. JT: I wonder how it is that the Fire Court is so successful. I have a couple of ideas. One of them is the single-minded purpose of this court: rebuild London as quickly as possible. It was limited in scope and scale. It had a lot of buy-in from major players. Also, it was not simply trying to compensate people for some awful thing that had happened in the past; it was prospective in its nature. It held out the prospect of being a win-win situation, where both the tenant would get a reduction in rent and the landlord would get a better building. There are certain aspects of our present situation that we face, where that same idea about trying to find a way to split the difference might be useful. That to me is the critical thing about the court – what lay behind it, the inspiration behind it – when you recognise that law is not an appropriate way to try to allocate loss. The laws that exist put too much loss on one side or the other. Let us find a way to split the difference and make everybody bear a fair share of what is a truly unexpected and un-anticipatable crisis. Professor Jay Tidmarsh Notre Dame Law School
His Honour Donald Cryan (Hon) LL.D A member of the Council of the Selden Society and a former Treasurer of The Inner Temple For the full video recording of this lecture: innertemple.org.uk/firecourts
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Giving Judges a Voice in Democracies
GIVING JUDGES A VOICE IN DEMOCRACIES From a lecture by Master Cheryl Thomas (UCL Faculty of Laws, Dean of Education at The Inner Temple) delivered via webinar on 16 November 2020.
In this talk on giving judges a voice in democracies, I am going to cover three things. I am going to explore the mechanisms British judges can use to express their views in public, and how these have changed over the years. I will share with you some key findings from my research, which explores judges’ attitudes and experiences, and tries to give them a voice. And I will consider some of the challenges in a democracy of giving judges a voice outside their court judgments.
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Today, in the UK, it is hard to think of a single important social issue that judges are not at some point asked to pass judgment on. In just the last few years, the courts have been asked to determine whether medical treatment should be withheld from terminally ill infants against their parents’ wishes, whether private landlords must check the immigration status of their tenants, who can legally be classified as a mother, whether terminally ill people should be allowed to determine when and how their lives end, and whether the government can do something like trigger article 50 to leave the EU without getting parliament’s consent, or can lawfully prorogue parliament for five weeks. This means that judges are subject to a greater level of public scrutiny, political debate and media attention than ever before. But judges historically have not had a voice outside of their court judgments. That changed in 2014 when the first UK Judicial Attitude Survey was run, exploring the attitudes and experiences of judges in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is a longitudinal study, which means it is run on a recurring basis. This allows us to understand how judges’ views may be changing over time. I am going to consider the importance of providing this type of voice to judges in a democracy, as well as the challenges that can result when judges are given such a voice. I also want to look how historically we have approached the idea of judges having a public voice. While judges have a voice through their legal judgments, judgments very rarely tell us much about how judges view their relationship with the other branches of government, the public and the media, or what their views are about being a judge and their role in society. Should judges have any other voice in democratic society? Traditionally, in this jurisdiction, the judiciary has relied on others to speak for and speak up for judges. Most prominently, this reliance has been placed on the Lord Chancellor, who has an obligation in law (under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005) to defend the independence of the judiciary. But events in recent years have raised questions about whether the judiciary can always rely on the Lord Chancellor to fulfil this obligation.
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In this context, it is useful to remember how the judicial voice has evolved in England and Wales. During the last century, judges were bound by the so-called Kilmuir Rules about when judges should and should not speak outside the courtroom. These were not formally developed judicial rules of conduct. They were the personal views of the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir, who in 1955, said, “The overriding consideration is the importance of keeping the Judiciary in this country insulated from the controversies of the day. So long as the judge keeps silent, his reputation for wisdom and impartiality remains unassailable.” The Kilmuir Rules were publicly abandoned in 1987 by Lord Mackay when he became Lord Chancellor. More recently, in a speech in 2012, when he was Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger endorsed a judicial voice when he said that “judges, with their wisdom and experience, should be able to comment extrajudicially on a wide range of issues.”
During the last century, judges were bound by the so-called Kilmuir Rules about when judges should and should not speak outside the courtroom. These were not formally developed judicial rules of conduct. They were the personal views of the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir. Judges can and do speak publicly now. One only has to look at the websites of the judiciary of England and Wales and the UK Supreme Court to see the large number of speeches by senior judges in recent years on a range of legal issues. This is permissible because, in principle, there is now no objection to members of the judiciary speaking about legal matters that are not controversial, via lectures, conferences or seminars organised by professional bodies or by academic institutions. Senior judges now also routinely give evidence to parliamentary committees. Judicial participation in select committees is usually confined to commenting on the operation of the courts, the independence of the judiciary or aspects of the administration of justice. This type of judicial voice is permissible because it is thought to contribute to public understanding and confidence in the judiciary. The scope of what judges can say publicly is bound by judicial conduct rules. By long-standing convention, judges cannot comment publicly on the merits of individual cases. They must also refrain from answering public criticism of any judgment. Judges are also not supposed to comment on government policies, proposed legislation or public appointments. There is also a statutory prohibition on judges being involved in any political activity or having ties with any political party.
Reader’s Lecture Series
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
And when it comes to social networking, blogging and the use of platforms such as Twitter, while this is not strictly prohibited, if judges do communicate online in this way, they must not identify themselves as members of the judiciary. They must also avoid expressing opinions which could damage public confidence in their own impartiality or the impartiality of the judiciary in general. Given these restrictions on judges having a voice in society, how then can we understand what it is really like to be a judge, what their attitudes are to being a judge, lives and the relationship they have with the public, the government and the media?
RL
Since 2014, judges in all the UK jurisdictions have been given some voice through the UK Judicial Attitude Survey. The survey explores judges’ views on a wide range of issues. This includes their working lives, their motivation to be a judge, their view of the role of the judge in society, the concerns they have in their working lives as judges. It also reveals how this might affect their willingness to continue in their judicial roles, or their willingness to encourage others to become judges. We have lived through some turbulent times for the judiciary since 2014 and I believe there is a need for independent objective research, giving judges a voice. The UK Judicial Attitude Survey is quite a clear and comprehensive voice; almost all judges (99%) have taken part in this study. I would like to share some of the findings of the survey with you now to illustrate the value of hearing this judicial voice. Let me start with a press headline about judicial salaries from the Daily Mail: “Spare a thought for our poor judges! They moan they are underpaid and underappreciated (despite enjoying six figure salaries)”. This headline followed publication of the first UK Judicial Attitude Survey, in which judges were asked about their working conditions and their remuneration. Because judges are restricted in what they can say publicly, it can be difficult for the public to interpret media stories like this. The Judicial Attitude Survey has enabled judges to speak at least indirectly by providing an important truth and context to this easy clickbait headline. The most recent Judicial Attitude Survey in 2020 showed the reality that a majority of judges in England and Wales take a pay cut, in some cases a very substantial one, to be a salaried judge. It is also important to understand this in the context of the fact that becoming a salaried judge also means accepting the ‘no return to practice’ rule in England and Wales. That means that once you become a salaried judge, you cannot return to your legal practice when you leave the bench, even if you decide to leave early.
Since 2014, judges in all the UK jurisdictions have been given some voice through the UK Judicial Attitude Survey. The survey explores judges’ views on a wide range of issues. This includes their working lives, their motivation to be a judge, their view of the role of the judge in society, the concerns they have in their working lives as judges.
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Giving Judges a Voice in Democracies
Why do judges become judges? I am going to share some more of the findings of the Judicial Attitude Survey for judges in England and Wales that give some insight into how judges see themselves, their role in society and the relationship with other political institutions. First, what motivates someone to become a judge? The main factors that motivate members of the legal profession to become judges in England and Wales are the chance to contribute to justice being done (79%), the challenge of the work (75%), the commitment to public service (70%) and the intellectual satisfaction (70%). Next, what do judges think of their role in society? Almost every single judge felt that she or he is providing an important public service to society (97%). And this view is pervasive amongst judges in all judicial posts in both the courts and tribunals.
If there is any serious intention in this country to learn lessons about judicial appointments from the United States, what needs to be clearly understood is the difference between US Supreme Court appointments and judicial appointments anywhere else. US Supreme Court appointments are what is called ‘Article III’ appointments. The US practice of life tenure and no minimum age or experience requirement for Article III judges is highly unusual and not replicated anywhere else in the common law world. US Supreme Court judges serve on average for 17 years, and this long tenure is what provides the primary justification for the role of elected officials in the process of nomination. For UK Supreme Court justices, there is a 15-year minimum legal experience qualification, and a legally binding retirement age that now forces all UK Supreme Court justices to retire at 80. This means that UK Supreme Court justices actually serve for very short periods of time (half of all now retired UKSC judges served for only three years or less). Suggestions that parliament should be involved in UK Supreme Court judicial appointments are not justified on the same grounds as they are in the US.
But how do judges think the public views them? Over two-thirds of judges feel that members of the judiciary are respected less now than they were five years ago; just under a third feel that the levels of public respect for judges have stayed the same; and only a very small minority feel that judges are respected more than they were five years ago. Judges feel most valued by other judges at their court (94%), by court staff that they work with (93%), the legal professionals that they work with (89%) and the parties who appear before them in cases (87%). It is interesting to note that over two-thirds of judges do feel valued by the public but few judges feel valued by the media (12%) and almost none feel valued by the government (9%). Given this, we also explored how concerned judges are by recent conflicts with the government and attacks by the media on judges. Both feature amongst those issues of greatest concern to judges; 73% were concerned about the loss of respect for the judiciary by the government and 53% were concerned about media attacks on the judiciary. But these sit alongside similarly strong concerns judges have over staff and budget reductions, an increase in litigants in person and the loss of experienced judges in the judiciary. Are there any real risks in giving judges a voice in democracies? First, I think there is an inevitable risk of misunderstanding when judges’ views are revealed. We saw that with some of the press coverage of the first Judicial Attitude Survey, which focused very heavily on judges’ views about their salary. But I think we also need to recognise that there is likely to be some public confusion about which judges can speak publicly and which cannot. The judicial conduct rules I outlined earlier apply primarily to salaried judges. Fee-paid, part-time judges are not under any general legal prohibition on political activity. There is also no prohibition on political activity in public debate by retired judges, although they should take care to avoid any activity which could tarnish the reputation of the judiciary, or the perception of its independence. The reality is that the retirement age age (70 for most judges) leaves many retired senior judges with new roles. Some of our most senior judges in retirement now play an important legislative role in the House of Lords, and some retired UK Supreme Court justices have also turned to political commentating. They will all inevitably be referred to as “judge” in media reports, and the public will not necessarily understand which judges are and are not able to express personal views in public. Finally, let me turn to the issue of US-style confirmation hearings for judges. This raises the question: should judges be forced to have a voice and speak publicly before they are actually appointed? Following the UK Supreme Court’s decision in The Miller–Cherry Case, the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said that “if judges are to pronounce on political questions in this way, then there is at least an argument that there should be some form of accountability”, and he said “the lessons of America are relevant.” The then Attorney General Geoffrey Cox told the House of Lords that there may very well need to be parliamentary scrutiny of judicial appointments, even though he said he was not enthusiastic about this. 44
Over two-thirds of judges feel that members of the judiciary are respected less now than they were five years ago; just under a third feel that the levels of public respect for judges have stayed the same; and only a very small minority feel that judges are respected more than they were five years ago. Judges feel most valued by their immediate colleagues, by court staff that they work with, the legal professional that they work with and the parties who appear before them in cases. So why does it matter that we give judges a voice in our democracy? In practical terms, it matters for the future of the judiciary. But it is also important for society as a whole that some demystification of the judiciary occurs by hearing from judges themselves. Today, in the UK, judges are increasingly subject to a greater level of public scrutiny and political discussion than ever before. This has come in large part as a result of the growing deferral to judges to address deeply controversial political and social issues, often ones that parliament and government are unable or unwilling to address. This brings judges increasingly into the public, political and media eye. But independent judges will always necessarily have a limited public voice beyond their judgments. Judicial independence requires that a judge be and be seen to be independent of the sources of power or influence in society. This means that giving judges a voice through independent analysis of their attitudes and experiences, as we do in the UK Judicial Attitude Survey, is more necessary now than ever. Professor Cheryl Thomas QC UCL Faculty of Laws Dean of Education at The Inner Temple For the video recording of this talk: inntemple.org.uk/lectures
Celebrate the Life
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
CELEBRATE THE LIVES DAVID GRAHAM WIDDICOMBE QC 7 January 1924 – 27 October 2019 Master Widdicombe was called to the Bar by The Inner Temple in 1950. Born in St Albans, David served as a Lieutenant tank commander in the Second World War. After demobilisation David read Law at Queen’s College, Cambridge, where he co-founded Varsity newspaper in 1947, becoming its second editor. At Cambridge David mentored Harry Lee, better known as Lee Kuan Yew, the founding Prime Minister of Singapore, who supported David and acted as his assistant and driver during David’s unsuccessful campaign for Labour candidate at the 1950 election in Totnes, Devon. He specialised in Government administration and practised in Britain as well as in Hong Kong and the Caribbean, which were still subject to British law. He took Silk in 1965 and later became a Recorder and subsequently a Deputy High Court Judge. He edited the standard reference work on council rates, and chaired the inquiry into the conduct of local authority business (the Widdicombe Report, 1986) after the outcry over Dame Shirley Porters’ conduct of affairs in the City of Westminster. He was appointed a Governing Bencher of the Inn in 1973 and served as a Trustee from 1975–1986.
C THE RT HON SIR ROY BELDAM 29 March 1925 – 16 October 2020 Master Beldam was called to the Bar in 1950 and took silk in 1969. He was appointed as a Recorder in 1972 and as a judge of the High Court in 1981. In 1989, he was elevated to the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, where he served until his retirement in 2000. He was made a member of the Privy Council in 1989. He also served as Legal Assessor to the General Medical Council from 1976–81 and as Chairman of the Law Commission from 1985–1989. Master Beldam was a long-standing and dedicated member of the Marshall Hall Trust, which gives financial assistance to members of The Inner Temple who are in need. His daughter, Master Alexandra Beldam, was elected as a Bencher in 2019. A keen sailor and an enthusiast of naval history, he served as a Sub-Lieutenant in the Fleet Air Arm from 1943–1946. He was the son of the first-class-cricketer and pioneering action photographer, George Beldam, and held a life-long interest in the sport as well as being an avid Rugby Union fan.
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Celebrate the Lives
SIR WILLIAM ALAN MACPHERSON OF CLUNY TD, 6TH OF BLAIRGOWRIE 1 April 1926 – 14 Feburary 2021 Master Macpherson was called to the Bar in 1952 and took Silk in 1971. He was appointed as a Recorder in 1972 and as a Judge of the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division in 1983 where he served until his retirement in 1997. He chaired perhaps one of the most important public inquiries to have taken place in the last twenty years, namely the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry which resulted in the publication of the Macpherson Report in 1999. He was a captain in the Scots guards before commanding the 21st Special Air Squadron Regiment of the Territorial Army and becoming an honorary colonel between 1983 and 1991. He remained a member of the Royal Company of Archers, the ceremonial guard for the Queen in Scotland, until 2006. He had also been president of the Highland Society of London and the London Scottish Rugby Football Club. Master Macpherson was elected a Bencher of the Inn in 1978. Every two years he arranged a match against Blairgowrie Golf Club as part of the Inner Temple Golfing Society’s Scottish Tour. The last match took place in 2012. After the match, he would host a party at his Castle in Blairgowrie in the evening at which there was always much merriment. Master Macpherson was the 27th Hereditary Chief of Clan Macpherson.
Sir William Macpherson of Cluny TD, painting by Bryan Organ, 2011
C EBEN HAMILTON QC 12 June 1937 – 11 February 2021 After completing University at Trinity College, Cambridge, Master Hamilton was called to the Bar in 1962 and took Silk in 1981. He was admitted ad eundum to Lincoln’s Inn and ad hoc to the Hong Kong Bar (1978), Singapore Bar (1982), and Cayman Bar (2001). He was Head of Chambers at 1 New Square and was instrumental in its merger with 12 New Square to form New Square Chambers in 2000. Master Hamilton was elected a Bencher of the Inn in 1985. He was a Barrister member of the Review Panel/Disciplinary Committee until 2010 and a regular attendee at the Inn’s events. He served as Deputy High Court Judge of the Chancery Dicision from 1990-2005. He performed his national service with the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards from 1955-1957 and in the Territorial Army’s Fife and Forfar Yeomanry/Scottish Horse squadrom from 1958-1966.
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Celebrate the Life
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
ELDRED TABACHNIK QC 5 November 1943 – 29 November 2020 After reading Law at the University of Cape Town, Master Tabachnik qualified as an advocate at the South African Bar, where he practised briefly, often acting pro bono for defendants in criminal prosecutions. Having met his beloved Jenny, he came to London to marry her in 1966 , and the couple decided to stay. He pursued an LLM at UCL, moving seamlessly to lecturing there. In 1970, he was called to the Bar by The Inner Temple, and after pupillages, latterly with Lord Irvine of Lairg (Master Irvine). He took silk in 1982, where he had the distinction of being the ‘bottom of the list’. He was a founder of 11KBW in 1981 and Joint Head of Chambers from 1997. On his death, 11KBW published on its website: “He almost singlehandedly created Employment Law as an area of practice in its own right and was the doyen of the Employment Bar for many years. He was a superlative lawyer, a great man, and a good and kind person”. He served as a Recorder from 2000 until retiring in 2008. He was elected a Bencher of the Inn in 1988.
WALTER GARRISON RUNCIMAN, 3RD VISCOUNT RUNCIMAN OF DOXFORD, CBE FBA 10 November 1934 – 10 December 2020 Known informally as Garry Runciman, Master Runciman was a British historical sociologist. A senior research fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, Master Runciman wrote several publications in his field. He also sat on the Bank of England’s Securities and Investment Board and chaired the British Government’s Royal Commission on Criminal Justice (1991–1993). He was elected an Honorary Bencher of The Inner Temple in 1992.
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HIS HONOUR JOHN WEEKS QC 11 May 1938 – April 2021 Master Weeks was called to the Bar in 1963 and took Silk in 1983. In 1991 he was appointed a circuit judge on the Western Circuit and as a Chancery Circuit judge in 1997 until his retirement in 2006. In 1989, his work Limitation of Actions was published. He lived in the Isle of Wight with his family where he could frequently be seen walking with his dog. He was elected a Judicial Governing Bencher in 1996.
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Celebrate the Lives
THE RT HON THE LORD JONATHAN HENRY SACKS 8 March 1948 – 7 November 2020 Master Sacks served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013. He was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen in 2005 and made a Life Peer in 2009, taking his seat in the House of Lords with the title Baron Sacks of Aldgate. After stepping down as Chief Rabbi, he was appointed as Professor of Law, Ethics, and the Bible at King’s College London, a Professor of Judaic Thought at New York University and a Professor of Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University. He won the Templeton Prize in 2016 in recognition of his “exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.” Rabbi Sacks authored over 35 books. He was a noted scholar whose publications and philosophical contributions have been monumental to modern understanding of Judaism and beyond. He was awarded 18 honorary doctorates including a Doctor of Divinity and he was a frequent and sought-after contributor to radio, television and the press both in Britain and around the world. He was appointed an Honorary Bencher of the Inn in 2001.
MASTER LUZIUS WILDHABER 18 January 1937 – 22 July 2020
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Master Wildhaber studied law at Basel and Yale universities. In 1977, he was appointed Professor at Basel University. From 1992 to 1994 he was Rector of the University. From 1975 to 1988 he sat as a judge of the Constitutional Court of the Principality of Liechtenstein and from 1989 to 1994 as a judge of the Administrative Tribunal of the Inter-American Development Bank. In 1991 he was elected judge of the European Court. In 1998 he was elected by his colleagues first President of the full-time Court set up under Protocol No 11 to the Convention and continued as President being twice re-elected until he reached the retirement age of 70 fixed by the Convention. Master Wildhaber was elected an Honorary Bencher in 2002 and gave a lecture at the Inn in October 2003.
DAVID YALE FBA HON QC 31 March 1928 – 26 June 2021 Master Yale was called to the Bar in 1951 and was appointed Honorary Queen’s Counsel in 2000. He was a Reader in English Legal History at the University of Cambridge from 1969 until 1993 and a Fellow at Christ’s College, Cambridge since 1950. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1980 and was President of the Selden Society from 1994–1997. In 1998, the Selden Society instituted the biennial David Yale Prize for outstanding contribution to the history of the law of England and Wales, awarded to a young scholar. Master Yale was elected as an Academic Bencher of the Inn in 2009.
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The Inner Temple
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
IN MEMORIAM
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IN MEMORIAM The Inn mourns members of the Inn who have died in the past year:* Mr Peter Taylor QC
16/09/2020
Ms Di Middleton QC
10/02/2021
The Rt Hon Sir Roy Beldam
16/10/2020
Mr Eben Hamilton QC
11/02/2021
Mr Donald MacFaul
01/11/2020
Mr Aqeel Noorali
02/11/2020
Sir William Macpherson of Cluny TD
14/02/2021
The Rt Hon The Lord Sacks
07/11/2020
Mr Ian Peddie QC
26/02/2021
Mr Eldred Tabachnik QC
29/11/2020
Mr Edward Barr
26/02/2021
Mr Kenneth Rogers
02/12/2020
Ms Katharine Rensten
01/04/2021
His Honour John Weeks QC
03/04/2021
The Rt Hon Viscount Runciman of Doxford CBE FBA
10/12/2020
Miss Joy Okoye
03/04/2021
Mr Edmund King QC
24/12/2020
Mr Howard Phillips
31/12/2020
HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh KG KT OM GBE
09/04/2021
Miss Elizabeth McGahey
31/12/2020
Mr Baghel Grewal
01/01/2021
Miss Gillian Higson-Smith
08/01/2021
Judge (Margaret) Wilby
11/01/2021
Miss Laura Brickman
14/01/2021
* correct as of 10/08/2021
Ms Charlotte Wycherley
11/05/2021
Mrs June Archer
08/06/2021
Dr John Olsson
11/06/2021
Mr David Yale QC His Honour Peter Rountree
26/06/2021 16/07/2021
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
One Bar: Experiences of Employed Barristers
ONE BAR: EXPERIENCES OF EMPLOYED BARRISTERS From an online panel discussion held on 24 June 2021, chaired by Master Sara Lawson (Serious Fraud Office) with Sarah Williams (Payne Hicks Beach), Master James Kitching (Fried Frank), Simon Regis (DCMS Legal Advisers) and Master Anupama Thompson (Harrow Crown Court).
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SARA LAWSON QC SERIOUS FRAUD OFFICE
SARAH WILLIAMS PAYNE HICKS BEACH
There are lots of ways of getting to where you want to be. This panel presentation is really to encourage everyone to open up and think about what is out there and what’s on offer. Speaking personally, my journey to the Employed Bar was a very long one because I had been practising in chambers for more than 20 years when I become an employed barrister at the Serious Fraud Office as their general counsel. There are many pros and cons about being employed or being self-employed. The main things about being employed are the paid holidays, the regular salary, and the fact that you don’t actually have to go and tout for your work. And there’s also the big difference of maternity or paternity leave pay. There’s also, depending on your circumstances, chances of working part-time. There’s much more flexibility generally in terms of the hours you can work. On tonight’s panel, we have employed barristers in public service, employed barristers in private practice and law firms, and we also have a judge with us who is going to talk about her journey from the Employed Bar to the bench.
I’m Sarah Williams, an employed barrister in the family department at Payne Hicks Beach. I started at the Bar in Manchester at 18 St John Street, a common law set with a fantastic pedigree. The Head of Chambers, Rodney Klevan QC, was a remarkable advocate who achieved outstanding jury successes. The common law pupillage work was just bustling. The late 1990s was a thrilling time to be at the SelfEmployed Bar. There was a real vibrancy about the local Bar.
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I had a really mixed bag of crime and family. Manchester was still doing armed robberies long after it had gone out of fashion in London. I enjoyed being led on heavyweight cases like that and fraud. However, after a time, I moved over to practising exclusively family law. The Family Bar in Manchester was incredibly vibrant, and we didn’t have to travel off circuit. As a junior barrister, I was privileged to be instructed on high quality work: it was commonplace to appear in the High Court on a regular basis and before remarkable judges like Baroness Hale and Sir Nicholas Wall. I felt incredibly spoilt and very lucky. I don’t think I’m looking back with rose-tinted glasses, but there were no concerns about the levels or quality of work; it was a very collegiate atmosphere in chambers and a vibrant local Bar within a very sociable Northern Circuit.
Treasury
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
JAMES KITCHING FRIED FRANK It was a huge wrench when I left the Bar after ten years to relocate abroad for family reasons. I then had three children and we lost three parents in quick succession. There were ten years when I didn’t work. While looking after the family, I always filled my time with charity work but with a legal bent: Citizens Advice, Mind (Welfare Reform Act) and the NSPCC. When it came to thinking about what to do next, in terms of actually earning money and re-establishing a career, I was really stuck. I think having had such a heavy court-based practice, I felt quite unemployable and only qualified for legal research, drafting skeleton arguments, and courtroom advocacy – I couldn’t imagine myself in an office-based environment. I envisioned the London Bar as not compatible with having three small children, so I discounted that. I thought, I’ll just see what I can do in-house. Through a friend of a friend I ended up taking a job in an international law firm. They assured me that it was a very sleepy family practice, but within about two weeks, the most enormous multimilliondollar divorce came through the door from Silicon Valley. That experience of being immersed in a long-running, high-profile international matter was utterly thrilling, re-ignited my desire to act on serious family law matters and facilitated the move into a specialist city family law firm in London and then onto PHB, which is a wonderful firm with extraordinary family work.
I’m reminded of a quote by a travel writer that “some beautiful paths cannot be discovered without first getting lost”. I began professional life as a pupil in a leading set of criminal chambers, with a resolute ambition of forging a career as a jury advocate. Like many individuals fresh out of Bar school, I had youthful aspirations of being the next George Carman or Richard Du Cann. Nothing less would suffice. Twenty years later, I’m a partner in a US firm, now practising principally commercial law and largely from behind a desk, although with regular forays into courts and tribunals around the world. Several people I have spoken to who have followed a similar route talk about reaching a ‘tipping-point’, when they decided to leave the Self-Employed Bar and join employed practice. In retrospect, there were probably many ‘tippingpoints’. I recall vividly, for example, the time when I was required to catch the first train out of Paddington at 5.03am and get across to Cardiff and up into the valleys for a bail application at Pontypridd Magistrates Court. For that, I paid the princely sum of £337 in train fares and bus fares and was rewarded some months later with a £48.50 brief fee.
That experience of being immersed in a long-running, high-profile international matter was utterly thrilling, re-ignited my desire to act on serious family law matters and facilitated the move into a specialist city family law firm in London and then onto PHB, which is a wonderful firm with extraordinary family work.
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
One Bar: Experiences from the Employed Bar
SIMON REGIS DCMS LEGAL ADVISERS
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I look back upon these episodes fondly now as ‘character building’ – although, I dare say that such experiences probably wouldn’t be viewed so charitably when measured against today’s standards. Overall, my experience of the Self-Employed Criminal Bar was that there were a huge number of positives: the gravity of the work; the camaraderie; and, surprisingly, the good humour. I’ll always look back fondly on the fantastic ‘on-the-job’ training that I received and the opportunity to cut my teeth. But, after four or five years, I began to experience a number of frustrations with self-employed practice: there were large periods of time waiting around; the pressure of being in court every day and the antisocial hours; and, finally, the lack of any international dimension. I decided to leave the Self-Employed Bar and go in-house, ultimately becoming a partner. My present role is much broader in scope than that of a criminal advocate – it reflects the fact that today’s high-value, complex, commercial disputes do not tend to come neatly packaged. My clients look to me to solve all aspects of their problems – and that might include a civil exposure, a regulatory component or a potential criminal liability. Often, we are co-ordinating parallel proceedings across multiple jurisdictions as well. Examples of recent cases that Fried Frank have been involved in include the Madoff scandal, FX and LIBOR fixing, and, more recently, the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) fraud.
My present role is much broader in scope than that of a criminal advocate – it reflects the fact that today’s high-value, complex, commercial disputes do not tend to come neatly packaged. My clients look to me to solve all aspects of their problems – and that might include a civil exposure, a regulatory component or a potential criminal liability.
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I’m currently Deputy Director, leading a team dealing with culture, sport and gambling at Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) Legal Advisers in the Government Legal Department (GLD). In terms of my career history and, in particular, looking at managing the transition from the Self-Employed Bar, I would say it was easier for me because I moved into employed practice with the Civil Service very early on. I finished my pupillage at Furnival Chambers and was unsuccessful at gaining tenancy, so I took up a post at the Criminal Confiscation Branch (CPS). Flexibility, the introduction to a regular salary and holiday pay and sick pay and pension made me think being employed is not a bad thing. One thing I did have to grapple with, because it was one of the reasons I joined the profession in the first place, was around advocacy. I had to settle with myself to say, I’m no longer going to be an advocate before the courts, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to be an advocate because I advocate every day in different fora. And once I’d come to accept that, that I wouldn’t necessarily be getting up before a judge, but I would be presenting my arguments before clients and ministers, that made me accept that transition a lot better. I have made quite a lot of use of the fact that within the Civil Service you can move around. I started off in a temporary post at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). I then moved to the Government Legal Service (GLS as it was then called) at HM Customs and Excise and spent three years dealing with international co-operation in criminal matters. I’ve had two stints in a non-legal role, one running the UK Central Authority at the Home Office (mutual legal assistance), thereafter working for the Council of Europe to lead a project on international co-operation in criminal matters. On return, I did a short stint at HMRC dealing with VAT fraud in the civil courts, before moving to the Treasury Solicitor’s Department (TSol). During my time at TSol, now GLD, I have held litigation roles in the areas of immigration and Ministry of Justice (MoJ) private law. I worked on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (and its non-statutory predecessor). I came back into GLD and moved from litigation into an advisory post working for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and just after that, and this is my most recent post, moving into DCMS Legal Advisers. I did lose my connection with and engagement with the Bar and with The Inner Temple when I moved into employed practice. I have re-established those connections and it is important that they are maintained.
Treasury
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
HHJ ANUPAMA THOMPSON HARROW CROWN COURT I’m a circuit judge, sitting in crime at Harrow Crown Court in London. I was called to the Bar in 1994 and, having undertaken a conventional criminal pupillage in two different sets of chambers, I was taken on in a small set on the outskirts of London, and I spent many happy years there practising in crime. When my first daughter came along in 2002, I and chambers worked hard to try to make parttime practice work, but it simply wasn’t viable. I therefore stopped working and concentrated on the family. Six years later, I applied for and got a job as an in-house case presenter at the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and there followed a real period of adjustment. I was part of a large team of other lawyers, both barristers and solicitors, and there was a real sense of team. The other great thing about employed practice is the opportunity for development and promotion that you just don’t get at the Self-Employed Bar. When I first came to the Bar, I remember looking at the judges in court and thinking, “I would love to do that”, quickly followed by the thought, “Well, that’s never going to happen to me.” When the 2015 Recorder competition launched, I initially thought, as an employed barrister, it was irrelevant to me. However, I applied and made it to the selection day and was then appointed. My initial euphoria was quickly replaced with the thought, “How on earth am I going to make this work?” I had, by this time, a very senior role at the NMC and I couldn’t easily disappear for six weeks every year to fulfil my sitting requirements. I knew in the first week of sitting that I wanted to sit full-time, and I realised I was going to have to work out how to get myself in the best position to seek a circuit judge appointment. I resigned from my job at the end of 2016 and spent the next two years as a sole practitioner, sitting as much as I could and taking on roles which would help to strengthen my judicial application. The gamble paid off and I was appointed a circuit judge in 2019.
The real message that I want to convey is that my belief that employed practice would not give me a good foundation from which to apply for judicial appointment could not be further from the truth. The breadth and depth of experience I gained in employed practice enabled me to demonstrate the competencies against which candidates for judicial appointment are assessed.
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My career has not taken the path I thought it would, but I have ended up in the place I aspired to in those first few weeks 27 years ago. But the real message that I want to convey is that my belief that employed practice would not give me a good foundation from which to apply for judicial appointment could not be further from the truth. The breadth and depth of experience I gained in employed practice enabled me to demonstrate the competencies against which candidates for judicial appointment are assessed. Sara Lawson QC Sarah Williams James Kitching Simon Regis HHJ Anupama Thompson
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EDUCATION & TRAINING # E
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Education for the Bar
EDUCATION FOR THE BAR The past year in Education and Training has been a period of firsts and one defined by challenges and change. The COVID-19 crisis drastically altered the Inn’s traditional training provision, and the Education and Training Committee (chaired by Master Alison Levitt) and Education and Training Department have presided over a truly unique year of online learning, remote outreach and digital events.
COVID-19 By the end of March 2020, it had already become clear that much of the Inn’s summer educational activities would not be able to proceed as planned and a large number of events were either drastically altered or moved online. This retooled summer schedule worked, in effect, as a dry run for the 2020–2021 academic year, as it soon became clear that we would not be able to proceed with in-person events for the Michaelmas term, at the very least. In response to government regulations and mindful at all times of the safety of students and members, the Inn pulled together a full programme of online learning for the year, including lectures, interactive sessions and advocacy training, with even the annual residential weekends moved entirely online.
Outreach
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The Inn’s outreach work continued to take place online, with events including Discovery Days for school students, Insight Evenings and a skills development course for our PASS students, which featured dozens of mock-pupillage interviews, sessions on surviving and thriving, and advocacy workshops. We were delighted to receive The Lawyer Award for Best Talent and Inclusion Initiative for the PASS programme, and to remain ranked in the Social Mobility Foundation’s Employer Index. This year, the Outreach team partnered with the Open University to create a new suite of digital resources for 14–16-year-olds, with the aim of demystifying the profession. These resources are free to access and include information for parents and teachers too. We have also partnered with the Ambassador Platform to enable prospective members of the Inn to chat with and ask questions of current students, giving them the opportunity to learn more about life at the Inner Temple. We are looking forward to building these virtual initiatives into our regular programme of events and activities.
Scholarships The Scholarships team was able to successfully run all scholarship interviews online this year, interviewing a record numbers of candidates for both the Bar course and GDL awards. In March, 422 candidates were interviewed for the Bar course, making 129 awards, and in June, 135 candidates were interviewed for the GDL awards, making 43 awards. Interviews for the Internship Awards and Pupillage Awards were also conducted online during June and July. Having had to find new ways of working during the COVID-19 pandemic, running online interviews in this way has helped the team to advance our online interview offering for those that are unable to attend inperson interviews, and they hope to be able to offer candidates the choice of online or in-person interviews in the future. We can’t thank our interviewers enough for their flexibility and dedication – as well as their patience as they attended test calls so that we could make sure everything ran smoothly.
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Student Societies The Inn’s student societies have had a busy year despite the online restrictions. From the Drama Society running weekly virtual dance classes during first lockdown to the Inner Temple Student Association (ITSA) hosting online panels on Bar scholarships and pupillage, as well as remote social events, the societies have used the past year as an opportunity to innovate and break new ground. A full rundown of the year’s achievements for the Inner Temple Debating, Mooting and Drama societies and ITSA can be found on page 70.
Qualifying Sessions Against the backdrop of a truly unprecedented year, the Inn has nonetheless managed to implement the goals laid out in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the four Inns and Bar Standards Board (BSB) in April 2019. Intended to clarify our respective roles and responsibilities, the changes proposed by the MoU have heavily affected our Qualifying Sessions and general educational provision, and the department is extremely proud to have successfully implemented these changes amidst the pressures of COVID-19. Specifically, a new system is now in place whereby students who enrolled on a Bar Training Pathway from September 2020 onwards must complete ten Qualifying Sessions across five designated themes prior to being called. A full report on these events can be found on page 66. The five themes, which cover all aspects of the skills and knowledge students need to learn as part of their training for the Bar, are as below:
A Ethics, Standards and Values;
B Advocacy Skills;
C Legal Knowledge, Justice and the Rule of Law;
D Equality, Diversity and Inclusion; and
E Preparation for Pupillage, Career Development and Well-Being.
Students also need to attend a certain number of Qualifying Sessions that are interactive and require preparation ahead of time. These themes have, in many ways, shaped the last year of Qualifying Sessions quite as much as the COVID-19 crisis, with new events such as the online Equality Diversity Inclusion (EDI) series and a much broader scope of Ethics sessions added to the programme to meet the needs of the framework. This has allowed for a much more diverse range of sessions and one that will continue to be refined and developed going forward. The Education and Training Department are exceptionally grateful to the Qualifying Sessions Committee (chaired by Master Rory Phillips) for all they have done to ensure these changes were seamless implemented, as well as to the Education and Training Committee for the vital support they have provided. Further changes are already in sight, as transferring legal professionals will now need to meet the same Qualifying Session requirements as students, and the Inn hopes to meet these challenges successfully over the course of the next academic year. The Inn now needs your support. If you are a practitioner on Circuit and feel you can support a Qualifying Session, please get in touch with the Education and Training Department as soon as possible.
Education & Training
Advocacy Training The Dean of Education, Master Cheryl Thomas, explores in her article on page 74 the challenges that have been overcome by the department and the Advocacy Training Committee to deliver a full programme of Pupil, New Practitioner and Teacher Training courses online, as well as the opportunities this has created to develop hybrid learning programmes when in-person training resumes.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity The barriers and challenged faced by entering the profession are well established. The Inn and Education and Training Committee continue to be committed to taking meaningful action to improve access and inclusion in the profession and within the Inn educational provision. The Inn’s BAME Student Network has been exceptionally busy over the past year creating new schemes and opportunities for BAME students (with initiatives ranging from mock interview schemes to events on mental health and imposter syndrome), and a full report on this can be found on page 65. One of the actions being taken by the Education and Training Department to combat inequality is an increase in opportunities for members and prospective members to talk about their experiences, learn from others and build informal networks. Subjects at the Inn’s year-long In Focus series have ranged from included Being LGBT+ at the Bar, Disability at the Bar, Being BAME at the Bar and Neurodiversity at the Bar, and you can read more about these events on page 60.
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
In addition to this, the Inn now has specific Qualifying Sessions that explore EDI through open and supportive dialogue as part of a series of EDI round-tables. Topics have included Class and Socio-Economic Diversity and the Bar, Women at the Bar, Being LGBTQ+ at the Bar, Disability at the Bar and Anti-Racism at the Bar. This year, Bench Table approved the introduction of a Volunteer and Participant Code of Conduct. The purpose of this Code of Conduct is to give both volunteers and participants clear guidance as to the standards of behaviour expected by the Inn when undertaking Education and Training activities. This underlines the Inn’s commitment to providing a training and mentoring environment in which all are treated with dignity and respect, and highlights that the Inn will not tolerate any form of harassment, discrimination or inappropriate behaviour.
Thank You As always, the Inn is immensely grateful to all its members who volunteer for our Education, scholarships and outreach programmes. With their ongoing support, and the support of new volunteers, the Inn will continue to do everything it can to meet the evolving needs of those training for the Bar through to established practitioners. If you would like to volunteer to assist with any of our programmes, please do get in touch.
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THE E&T TEAM STRUAN CAMPBELL Director of Education scampbell@innertemple.org.uk
HELEN GASKELL Education and Student Support Co-ordinator
SELLISHA LOCKYER Scholarships and Student Engagement Manager
EDWINA KOROMA Outreach and Professional Training Co-ordinator
0207 797 8214
hgaskell@innertemple.org.uk
slockyer@innertemple.org.uk
ekoroma@innertemple.org.uk
020 7797 2386
020 7797 8210
020 7797 8213
GEORGINA EVERATT Scholarships and Student Engagement Co-ordinator
kupham@innertemple.org.uk
DAVID MILLER Education Programme Manager (Established Practitioner)
020 7797 8189
dmiller@innertemple.org.uk
020 7797 8211
EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT Treasury Building, Inner Temple, London EC4Y 7HL (office situated at 2 King’s Bench Walk) 020 7797 8208
KERRY UPHAM Education Co-ordinator and Assistant to the Director of Education
JULIA ARMFIELD Education and Student Support Manager jarmfield@innertemple.org.uk
020 7797 8207
020 7797 8209 RICHARD LOVERIDGE Call to the Bar and Professional Training Co-ordinator rloveridge@innertemple.org.uk
020 7797 8212
geveratt@innertemple.org.uk
DAISY MORTIMER Outreach Manager dmortimer@innertemple.org.uk
020 7797 8262
innertemple.org.uk twitter.com/TheInnerTemple facebook.com/TheInnerTemple
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Inner Temple Outreach
INNER TEMPLE OUTREACH By Daisy Mortimer, Outreach Manager
Over the last year, the Inner Temple’s Outreach Department has had to think carefully about how best to continue its work in widening access to the Bar in light of COVID-19. Much like the rest of the Inn’s work since the start of the pandemic, we have pivoted quickly into a range of online events and offerings. Despite the initial difficulties of moving online, our work over the last year has overwhelmingly proven to be a great success. The number of students engaged this year has been greater than ever before, and we have been able to reach participants and volunteers across England and Wales, as well as internationally.
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As always, the Outreach team’s aim is to provide enriching experiences and information, to enable understanding of the profession, and to support those thinking of becoming a barrister, whatever their background. This year has seen us run a huge number of outreach events, including Insight Online events and Discovery Days for schools. Our Insight Online evenings are aimed at both university students and career changers, while our Discovery Days are aimed at school students in years 12 and 13. Both events feature Q&A panel discussions that provide the opportunity to learn from practising barristers and judges about their experiences and routes to the Bar. We have been delighted to engage with hundreds of participants through these events.
The number of students engaged this year has been greater than ever before, and we have been able to reach both participants and volunteers across England and Wales, as well as internationally. We have also run two In Focus events this year, with the aim of having open and frank discussions with members and prospective barristers about issues faced by under-represented groups in the profession. This year, the events were focused on Being BAME at the Bar and Neurodiversity at the Bar. We welcomed a wide range of attendees and were thrilled with the breadth of topics discussed across the events. We look forward to the insightful and important conversations that will come out of this series in the coming year.
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We saw the exciting launch of two new digital outreach offerings: our chat platform and our digital resources. Our new suite of digital resources created in collaboration with the Open University are aimed at three groups: school students, their parents/carers and their teachers, and barristers running outreach sessions. The resources are interactive, enabling students to learn about what a barrister does on a day-today basis, different practice areas at the Bar, the role of the Inns of Court, and the academic requirements of the role. We hope that through engaging with these authoritative, accessible resources, school students have a clearer idea of the journey to the Bar and the support that is available to them. These can be accessed via the Open University website. Our new chat platform, in collaboration with The Ambassador Platform (TAP), is aimed at those wanting to study the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) or Bar Course and gives them access to our student ambassadors and staff. Our ambassadors are either currently students or recent graduates of the Bar Course training, who can offer direct help and advice from their own experiences. We also have several members of Inner Temple staff on the platform, who can help provide guidance on how the Inn supports its members. We would be unable to run our work were it not for the support of our members and are extremely grateful to everyone who gave up their time to support an outreach event over this last year. The geographical constraints of previous years have been removed over the last 18 months, and we have been delighted with the engagement of our volunteers both nationally and internationally – from as far afield as Mauritius! We recognise that practitioners face many demands on their time, which can make volunteering difficult to fit in. Volunteering for an outreach event often takes no longer than a couple of hours and is very flexible. We are always looking for volunteers from every part of the profession, from Bar Course students to QCs and senior judges. If you want to find out more about volunteering, please get in touch with the Inn’s Outreach team.
Education & Training
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
BECOMING A BARRISTER:
New Online Resources for School Students
The outreach team of the Inn is proud to have newly partnered with the Open University to deliver a suite of digital resources for school students, their parents/carers, and their teachers. Through engaging with these authoritative, accessible resources, we aim to help give school students a clearer idea of the journey to the Bar and the support that is available to them. The project began in 2019, when the Outreach Department undertook research to identify how we could further support young people from a wide and representative background to better understand the legal profession. We found that there was a wealth of events and resources designed to help students aged 16–18 learn more about becoming a barrister. The Inn itself offers Discovery Days for Schools events, which take place several times during the year. These prove a useful opportunity for students in years 12 and 13 to better understand the role of a barrister and the route to the Bar they may take. We found, however, that there was very little information available for slightly younger students, aged 14–16. Most students undertaking their A levels already have some idea about what they might read at university, but it was felt that there was a gap in the market for a useful resource to help introduce slightly younger students to the role of a barrister. We felt that a digital resource was the best format for this to take and made the decision in 2019 to send out an invitation to tender as a collaborator on this new and exciting project. We chose the Open University as our partner, and the resources have been created by Dr Neil Graffin and Dr Emma Jones in close collaboration with the Outreach team and a subgroup of the Outreach Committee. They are designed to be informative, engaging and interactive, enabling students to learn about what a barrister does on a day-to-day basis, different practice areas at the Bar, the role of the Inns of Court, and the academic requirements of the role. They contain three key sections: ‘Learning about barristers’, designed for students; ‘Supporting an aspiring barrister’, for teachers, parents and carers; and ‘Planning an outreach session’, which should prove useful for barristers who have been asked to deliver outreach sessions in schools.
We hope that they will act as a definitive guide to a career at the Bar for this age group, and serve as an extension of our already existing Schools Project. With the accessibility of these new digital resources, we aim to help widen access to the profession and to demystify it at an early stage, ensuring students with the capability and determination to pursue a career at the Bar are given the opportunity to do so, regardless of their background.
We hope that they will act as a definitive guide to a career at the Bar for this age group, and serve as an extension of our already existing Schools Project. On the launch of these resources, the Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Justice and Master of the Bench, Robert Buckland QC, MP, said: “I am very proud that my Inn has partnered with the Open University to create a new, authoritative suite of online resources for school students and their parents and teachers, designed to clarify the journey to the Bar and what life as a barrister looks like. These resources will help to demystify the profession for those who may otherwise feel that it may not be accessible to them, thus widening access to and understanding of the Bar at an early educational stage.” The resources can be accessed on the Open University’s OpenLearn Create platform here: open.edu/ openlearncreate/course/index.php?categoryid=440. Daisy Mortimer Outreach Manager
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In Focus
IN FOCUS
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In 2019, the Outreach team instigated a new series of events with the aim of having open, frank discussions with existing and prospective members about challenges faced by demographics that are underrepresented in the profession. These conversations have celebrated the progress towards inclusivity that the profession has made so far, but have also highlighted the distance still to go and the role the Inns of Court have to play in that journey.
The series began in 2019 with an event centred on the experiences that people who identify as LGBT+ have at the Bar and was held at Garden Court Chambers. This event covered instances of discrimination, the fight for social justice for the community and the role that the Inn has in advancing this cause. We at Inner Temple are proud to fly the rainbow flag each year to celebrate Pride Month and to take part in the annual Legal Pride parade, but we are also mindful of the need to undertake concrete and tangible actions to support our LGBT+ members.
We at Inner Temple are proud to fly the rainbow flag each year to celebrate Pride Month and to take part in the annual Legal Pride parade, but we are also mindful of the need to undertake concrete and tangible actions to support our LGBT+ members.
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Education & Training
We followed this event with another, Disability at the Bar, which, due to Project Pegasus, was held at the Law Society. Although in a large space, it was an intimate conversation with around 25 participants where we were able to hear the concerns of students and prospective barristers. We also heard from a practising barrister who identifies as an ally and a disabled practitioner highlighting the current work going on in chambers and in the law in general. Creating this space encouraged us to look at the practicalities of life in chambers for disabled practitioners. We are hoping to host a follow-up event including chambers so we can discuss these concerns at a future event to create tangible change. In 2020, we ran an In Focus evening titled Being BAME at the Bar. Following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, the Inn had put a message on its website, on social media and in a communication to members stating that we stand in support of all people experiencing racism and asking what we can do to better support them. We were inundated with responses and suggestions, some of which were discussed at this In Focus event. Use of the term BAME was also discussed at the event, and we are now reviewing its use in our communications.
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
This year, our In Focus event was centred on Neurodiversity at the Bar and featured a wide-ranging discussion on the experiences people with conditions including (but not limited to) attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia and dyspraxia have whilst practising at the Bar and as students. Moving forward, we plan on hosting future In Focus events covering mental health, caring responsibilities and many more topics. Our hope is that having these conversations enables our students and members to openly share their experiences of the Bar so that we can work to make the profession more inclusive and diverse. If there is a topic you would like to see covered in the future, or you would like to contribute to the conversations, please contact Edwina Koroma at ekoroma@innertemple.org.uk.
Our hope is that having these conversations enables our students and members to openly share their experiences of the Bar so that we can work to make the profession more inclusive and diverse. E
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Inner Temple Scholarships
INNER TEMPLE SCHOLARSHIPS 2021 BAR COURSE AWARDS PETER TAYLOR SCHOLARSHIP
PRINCESS ROYAL (2 Awarded)
Drishti Suri
Maud Millar and Maud Mullan
STEPHEN CHAPMAN AWARD Rowan Stennett
PRINCESS ROYAL (5 Awarded) Teen Jui Chow, Daniella Davenport, Oliver Goldstein, Caitlin Page and Harry Perkin
EXHIBITION AWARDS (37 Awarded)
Matthew Banks, Amber Boothe, Youcef Boussabaine, Rebecca Brown, Lily Church, Alexandra Clift, Stacey Cranmore, Colleen Cumbers, Luke Decker, John Harper, Daniel Hodgkinson, Ellie Horan, Lucas Jones, Emma Meadows, Rosie Muncer, Sofia-Maria Neacsu, Calla Randall, Rosa Thomas, Natasha Waller and Jeremy Warner
EXHIBITION AWARDS (102 Awarded) Oliver Amos, Grace Annesley, Gabriel Apolloni, Charles Archer, Aura Bamber, Georgia Banks, Hayley Belgrave, Jake Bowman, Molly Broster, Rhys Brown, Velma Bruce-Cathline, Charlotte-Jane Buck, Andrew Burrell, Oliver Burrows, Rachel Carter, Maisie Carter, Tobias Collins, Alexander Courtnage, Tanita Cross, Dipali Dalia, Thomas Dawson, Ethan Dighton, Cordelia Drew, Rachel du Plessis, Ilona Duro, Rebecca Ellis, Lucy Evanson, Beenish Fawad, Niamh Fegan, Maxallan FitzRoy-Stone, Syra Flaxman-Ali, Ella Fornsworth, Constantine Fraser, Amanda Gabriel DeBell, Lauren Gardner, Tasneem Ghazi, Noah Gifford JP, Xin Yi Goh, Benjamin Gray, Riana Hardy, Louisa Harris, Eleanor Harris, Maryan Hassan, Leanne Hemming, Tomas Higginson, Mohammed Hussain, Mohamed Hussein Iman, Arianna Iovine, Richard Jones, Jakub Kaluza, Eren Kara, Aikaterini-Paraskevi Karamanli, Victoria Kaye, Sarah Kinsella, Lois Lane, Jade-Amanda Laporte, Katherine Lewis, Nicholas Linfoot, Rebecca Linford, Basanti Mardemootoo, Jonathon McCarthy, Caroline McCarthy, Noor-Ul-Ain Mirani, Anna Moody, Sonalakshi Naidu, Hannah Nielsen, Christie O’Connell, Martha O’Neil, Denise Osei, Mahdi Parvar, Bianca Patulea, Beth Payne, Andrew Pearson, Joseph Perl, Thomas Phillips, AnnMarie Pinkney, Soniya Ponniah, Percy Preston, James Alexander Reynolds, Thea-May Reynolds-Hunt, Zainab Saleem, Glen Samuel, Rachael Sanders, Atalanta Sanders-Cox, Coline Schupfer, Anika Sohail, Madeleine Southey, Iain Stark, Emma Talbot, Suzanne TerMinassian, Feranmi Thomas, Alexa Thompson, David Tipping, Jessica Toale, Triandafillia Vorri, Nicole Wallace, Amy Weir, James Western, Lawrence Wilde, Daniel Witt, Freya Wood and Jeen Ann Young This year, the Inn received 493 applications for the Bar Course Awards and, after allowing for withdrawals, interviewed 442 candidates over two Saturdays in March. We have awarded 129 scholarships, to a total of £1,759,770.
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MAJOR SCHOLARSHIP (4 Awarded) Gabriel Barton-Singer, Shirlyn Gathoni, Hannes Jobstl and Jillian Laws
MAJOR SCHOLARSHIPS (20 Awarded)
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2021 GDL AWARDS
Daniella Adeluwoye, Jamie Arthur, Zara Cassid, Megan-Grace Cordelle, Francesca Dickens, Isabel Dutton, Karen Fulton, Andreea Gheorghe, Josh Gibson, Samuel Gibson, Rebecca Grant, Olivia Hayes, Patrick Hegarty Morrish, Frederic Holker, David Horwich, Alasdair Johnston, Katherine Luckhurst, Appin MackayChampion, Wayne Miller, Luca Montag, Freya Morgan, Joshua Neaman, Maria Odueyingbo, Isabella Ponsonby, John Ritzema, Michael Rivelin, Sofia Santos, Khola Shah, Rosie ShoulerHarris, Caleb Suggitt, Jessie Taylor, Charlotte Penelope Tosti, Ruby Turok-Squire, Holly Twist, Joe Viles, Adam Weisz and Zara Yusuf. This year, the Inn received 139 applications for the GDL Awards and, after allowing for withdrawals, interviewed 135 candidates over Friday 18 and Saturday 19 June. We have awarded 43 GDL scholarships, to a total of £209,650.
Education & Training
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
WHAT MY INNER TEMPLE SCHOLARSHIP MEANT TO ME “ What does being awarded a scholarship mean to you?”
“ What was your experience of the application process?”
“ What was your experience of the scholarship interview?”
Basanti Mardemootoo – Exhibition Scholarship
Mohammed Hussain – Peta Fordham Scholarship
Tanita Cross – Exhibition Scholarship
Aside from the financial support, this award has given me hope. Paving the way for a career at the Bar is hard, and I often question whether I have what it takes to succeed. Being awarded the scholarship provided me with a muchneeded answer. I felt heard, appreciated and, most importantly, believed in.
My experience was amazing! The Scholarships and Student Engagement team have a hands-on approach. They are always there to assist prospective candidates. The application process was very straightforward and, as a visually impaired candidate, I am grateful for all the adjustments made for me when applying.
The panel was diverse and encouraging, which put me at ease and made me feel welcome. The Chair set out the roadmap of the interview very clearly, so I knew what to expect. It was clear all the panel members wanted me to succeed.
Grace Annesley – Exhibition Scholarship Receiving scholarships for the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) made my hopes for a career at the Bar realistic and achievable, which has changed the trajectory of my life. In short, it means a great deal!
Ilona Duro – Ashworth Scholarship The application process was very straightforward. The scholarship team at the Inner Temple were incredible and always provided updates and advice where necessary. The interviewers were friendly and made me feel at ease.
Jake Bowman – Exhibition Scholarship
Jade-Amanda Laporte – Poland Prize
Being awarded this scholarship means the world to me. Without this award, I would have been unable to take the Bar course this year and, therefore, would have had to have taken a year out. Coming from a low socioeconomic and LGBT background, this award has given me the confidence and belief in myself to pursue the Bar without any further doubt in my abilities.
The scholarship process was far less daunting than the image I had built up in my mind. At every stage, I knew exactly what was going to happen, in plenty of time, and the Inn’s scholarship staff were extremely helpful answering any question that I had, often the very same day.
Daniella Davenport – Princess Royal Scholarship Being awarded this scholarship is a lifeline to becoming a barrister. Coming from a working-class background, I do not have savings or any family I could draw from to cover the Bar fees. Being offered the higher award means I can also do my Master of Laws (LLM) at the same time and study full-time. It also means a lot that the Inner Temple believes in me enough that they are willing to pay for my education.
Atalanta Sanders-Cox – Exhibition Scholarship What is expected of each applicant is highlighted throughout the process. Every step, requirement and deadline is communicated clearly by the Scholarship team.
Hannah Nielsen – Jardine Scholarship The interview panel was friendly and encouraging. They seemed as though they wanted applicants to succeed, rather than trying to catch applicants out. Tom Phillips – Exhibition Scholarship The structure of the interview was made clear in advance and repeated in the interview by the Chair of the panel. Each interviewer was polite and down to earth; I never felt that I was speaking to an elite group of barristers but instead that I was being given the opportunity to share my interests and my ambition. Soniya Ponniah – Exhibition Scholarship Before entering the interview, I was overwhelmed with nerves. However, every person on the panel made me feel at ease. Their constant support and pleasant smiles allowed me to focus on the questions and answers. Even without the scholarship, the interview provided me with the opportunity to test my own skills and knowledge. I also learned a lot about the process and about myself as a person.
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Remote Qualifying Sessions
REMOTE QUALIFYING SESSIONS Over the course of the 2020–2021 academic year, the Education and Training Department was faced with the not inconsiderable task of providing a comprehensive and engaging programme of Qualifying Sessions – but with all events held entirely online. In response to government regulations and mindful of the safety of our students and members, the decision was taken early on to assess the layout of each term separately, and although we had initially hoped to return to some semblance of in-person learning by Trinity term, it was
ultimately decided that it would be necessary to hold the full academic year online. An unprecedented occurrence in the Inn’s history, this year of online learning called for good humour and generosity on the part of our volunteers and much creativity and flexibility from staff in order to create a programme which was challenging and accessible to students, and allowed for both the educational and social aspects that are key to all Qualifying Sessions to shine through. The wide-ranging programme of remote Qualifying Sessions, all of which were hosted via Zoom, ran as below:
Session Title
Session Date 22 September 2020 (London Students) 2 October 2020 (OOL Students) 29 September 2020 1 October 2020 5 October 2020 6 October 2020 7 October 2020 13 October 2020 21 October 2020
Introductory Evening Legal Research Training Advocacy Skills Session Reader’s Lecture Night: A Public Health Approach to Equality Law Well-Being at the Bar Advocacy Skills Session EDI Series: Class and Socioeconomic Diversity at the Bar Legal Research Training
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Mooting Masterclass EDI Series: LGBTQ+ at the Bar CIRCUIT EVENT: Pupillage Advice Evening CIRCUIT EVENT: How to Examine/Cross-Examine a Vulnerable Witness Pupillage Q&A Reader’s Lecture Night: Giving Judges a Voice in Democracies Social Context of the Law: The Inner Temple and the Rule of Law: the Life of Helmuth von Moltke November Advocacy Weekend: Modern Slavery CIRCUIT EVENT: Ethics in Practice EDI Series: Women at the Bar Advocacy Teacher Training Weekend Advocacy Masterclass Spotlight On: Civil Pupillage CIRCUIT EVENT: Moving on With Legal Research January Advocacy Weekend: Inquests and Inquiries Social Context of the Law: Prison Reform Spotlight On: Crime and Family Pupillage Reader’s Lecture Night: What Does It Mean to Be AntiRacist in a Profession Full of Privileged People? Ethics in Practice CIRCUIT EVENT: Tackling Discrimination Education Day International Practice Panel Reader’s Lecture Night: The Absolute Ban on Assisted Dying and Lessons From Canada EDI Series: Disability at the Bar Advocacy Skills Session Social Context of the Law: Should UK Judges and ex-Judges Be Sitting in Hong Kong? May Advocacy Weekend: Employment and Discrimination Law Advocacy Skills Session Ethics in Practice CIRCUIT EVENT: Ethics in Practice CIRCUIT EVENT: Advocacy Skills Session EDI Series: Anti-Racism at the Bar Spotlight On: Alternative Routes to Practising at the Bar
The E&T Department is exceptionally grateful to all its Bencher and member volunteers, whose time and assistance has been completely invaluable to the running of this year’s QS programme. Drawing from student feedback and the general experiences of the past year, the department hopes to weave online learning into its future offerings in a more permanent fashion, although bearing in mind that in-person learning is, in many cases, unrivalled. The collegiality and unique 64
27 October 2020 29 October 2020 4 November 2020 11 November 2020 12 November 2020 16 November 2020 23 November 2020 27–29 November 2020 1 December 2020 12 January 2021 16–17 January 2021 18 January 2021 20 January 2021 25 January 2021 29–31 January 2021 2 February 2021 9 February 2021 15 February 2021 20 February 2021 22 February 2021 27 February 2021 1 March 2021 8 March 2021 30 April 2021 1 May 2021 6 May 2021 7–9 May 2021 12 May 2021 13 May 2021 21 May 2021 21 June 2021 22 June 2021 1 July 2021
setting of the Inn cannot be denied, but the accessibility and openness fostered by the online format has also been made increasingly clear to us. We hope, as a department, to bring a programme of blended online and in-person learning to the fore of our educational programme from now on.
Julia Armfield Education and Student Support Manager
Education & Training
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
INNER TEMPLE BAME STUDENT NETWORK SOCIETY By Tamara Baker
The Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Network Society was formed in October 2019. The impetus for the society was the Bar Standards Board’s (BSB) Diversity at the Bar 2018 report. The report set out that 13 per cent of barristers at the Bar are BAME. Upon reviewing the report, the current Chair of the society, who was shocked by the large gap in diversity at the Bar, felt it was vital that there be a society to support student members from BAME communities and assist them in combating the difficulties that may affect their access to the Bar. The BSB’s Diversity at the Bar 2020 report sets outs that 14.1 per cent of barristers at the Bar are BAME. Within two years, there has been only a 1.1 per cent increase in the number of BAME barristers at the Bar. There are also discrepancies within the BAME category itself. According to the report, 7.5 per cent of the Bar are Asian/Asian British while 3.2 per cent are Black/Black British. The stark reality of these figures is that members of the BAME community will face challenges to becoming a barrister that their white counterparts simply will not. Additionally, their chances of succeeding in the profession are disproportionately lower. However, despite these figures, we strongly encourage students from BAME backgrounds to pursue a career at the Bar. Progress can be slow, but if you have made it this far, keep going. For many of us, the words of Shirley Chisholm surely ring true: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”
ACTIVITIES OVER THE ACADEMIC YEAR In the last academic year, the society has been in discussion with chambers regarding mini-pupillages. We had hoped to form a mini-pupillage scheme for BAME Bar students, but COVID-19 had a profound impact on our ambitions. However, we were able to adapt how we connect with our members, and rethink how we could ensure our members still had access to opportunities at the Bar.
MENTAL HEALTH The pandemic has had a significant effect on people’s mental health, widely causing feelings of loneliness and anxiety. These feelings are exacerbated for student members who already face the pressures of trying to succeed at the Bar. Therefore, as the Vice-Chair of the society, I felt it was important to have an event relating to well-being. The Society held an event called ‘Combatting the imposter syndrome’, where speakers from different stages at the Bar, including BPTC graduates, pupil barristers and barristers, discussed their experience of the imposter syndrome, feelings of doubt about succeeding at the Bar, or having to prove that they deserve their achievements. Some of the tips provided by our speakers on dealing with these feelings included:
Become aware of what triggers you. Use self-affirmations. Write down your achievements (what you focus on, you see more of). Challenge yourself. The feeling of being competent and confident takes time to build and often follows the action. Therefore, lead with action and put yourself up for opportunities. Have a support system with whom you can be vulnerable. Develop a coping response to failure. You will make mistakes from time to time, but do not let them get you down. If you have made a mistake, learn from it and make the next attempt better.
MOCK PUPILLAGE INTERVIEW SCHEME We also created the Mock Pupillage Interview Scheme, alongside our peers in the Inner Temple Students’ Association (ITSA), giving BAME students the opportunity to have a mock interview with barristers. This scheme was created to provide members with access to professionals at the Bar. We hope to run the scheme next year.
OUR PLANS FOR NEXT YEAR In the next academic year, we hope to create even more schemes to address the disparities for Black, Asian and ethnic minorities at the Bar. We hope to have a regular podcast, beginning September 2021, and would like to set up a sponsored Mooting, Debating and Essay Competition for our student members to display their talents and skills. Finally, please do follow us on our social media platforms, to keep up to date with all our activities. Tamara Baker Vice-Chair, BAME Student Network Society
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EDI Qualifying Session Series – an Intersectional Approach to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the Bar
EDI QUALIFYING SESSION SERIES –
An Intersectional Approach to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the Bar Despite the challenges posed by remote learning over the course of the past year, the Education and Training Department has pulled together to ensure that the usual exemplary standards are met in our Education and Outreach provision. Whilst there have been many difficulties inherent in pulling together a fully digital programme for the year, in some instances the imposed online format allowed innovation to flourish in a way that might otherwise have taken longer to achieve.
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The relative freedom of the online format made it easier to put together topical events at shorter notice, leading to a variety of new online series being added to the existing Qualifying Session programme. Amongst other things, this freedom facilitated the addition of a full year’s series on intersectional EDI concerns, covering as wide a spectrum of protected characteristics as possible, and drawing from a pool of speakers from across the profession. The series was proposed by members of staff after a trial Qualifying Session on Anti-Racism at the Bar held online last summer. It was backed up by the new Bar Standards Board (BSB) framework, which requires that students complete at least one Qualifying Session each, under a number of themes, including equality, diversity and inclusion. Over the course of the year, online panel talks were held on the following topics:
CLASS AND SOCIOECONOMIC DIVERSITY AT THE BAR
BEING LGBTQ+ AT THE BAR 29 October 2020 Panel: Dr S Chelvan (Chair), Andrew Powell, Robin White Discussion points: Discrimination within the Bar for LGBTQ+ practitioners. Pursuing LGBTQ+ work within practice. Chambers’ role in promoting inclusivity and how to be a good ally. LGBTQ+ networks within and outside of the Inn – how important is this support to someone considering a career at the Bar? LGBTQ+ visibility, the importance of visibility and pioneers.
WOMEN AT THE BAR 12 January 2021 Panel: Master Raquel Agnello (Chair), Master Harini Iyengar, Lynne Townley, Abimbola Johnson, Fallon Alexis Discussion points:
The gender pay gap, sexism and the law.
Harassment and bullying at the Bar.
Tackling stereotypes and sexism.
Maternity leave, attrition and mentoring.
13 October 2020
DISABILITY AT THE BAR
Panel: Master Rachel Spearing (Chair), Master Tanweer Ikram, Master Hui Ling McCarthy, Adeola Fadipe, Sunyana Sharma, Anna Bond
30 April 2021
Discussion points:
Discussion points:
Panel: Dr Oliver Lewis (Chair), John Horan, Michael Etienne, Adal Ibrar, Roxy Lackschewitz-Martin
Education and access to skills building.
Do scholarships and diversity initiatives assist with pursuing a career at the Bar?
Neurodiversity, the spectrum of disability and neurodivergent professionals.
Assisting disabled clients and interacting with disabled judges/other practitioners.
Discrimination, chambers’ role in combating issues and how to improve the Bar.
Health and well-being in your practice.
Progression at the Bar for working-class candidates. Imposter syndrome. Challenges to inclusivity and embedded ideas of the Bar.
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ANTI-RACISM AT THE BAR 22 June 2021
Panel: Raggi Kotak (Chair), Master Tunde Okewale, Grace Ong, Tamara McCarthy-Baker, Rabah Kherbane Discussion points:
Activism and combating systemic racism and microaggressions at the Bar.
Progression and retention of practitioners of colour.
Addressing (white) privilege.
The importance of representation and pioneers.
Diversity in judicial appointments.
Doing the work – how can allies show up against racism? What does real change and examination into discriminatory practices look like?
The importance of networks and support when pursuing a career at the Bar.
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to be done. From Chambers’ role in promoting diversity to the importance of visibility and pioneers, students were encouraged to consider what they could do to help improve the Bar, but also what they should expect the Bar to do for them. Student feedback for these events was largely positive, with many noting that the frank talks from experienced practitioners had made them feel more hopeful. The department would like to express its particular thanks to all the panellists who gave up their time to provide the students with such thought-provoking talks. Here is some of the feedback: “ The QS motivated me to continue; and I gained the feeling that I wasn’t alone.” “ An absolutely brilliant session. Not just ‘rags-toriches’ stories but ways in which students can actively progress, regardless of their background. The speakers were incredibly engaging and motivating. Would highly recommend this session to others.”
Mental health and well-being, trauma, exhaustion and how to avoid gaslighting.
“ The QS was most powerful for its personal stories, which the practitioners told very movingly.”
Intersectionality and accessibility of the Bar for marginalised groups.
“ I felt the session was eye-opening and I felt I came away more knowledgeable and alert to issues.”
One year on from George Floyd, can we see visible change?
“ A very informative and engaging session that educated me of the issues that LGBTQ+ people face in society and in the workplace and how we, as colleagues and friends, can support and validate these people.”
In each case, speakers provided contrastingly hopeful and bracing accounts of injustices they had faced and ways in which to equip oneself for life at the Bar. Students were asked to grapple with issues of representation and preconceived ideas about protected characteristics as speakers presented them with honest accounts of the equality, diversity and inclusion issues that can arise in the legal profession, from the recruitment stage to long-term practice. The core aim of each session was to ensure that the students felt more equipped with the necessary tools to resist stereotyping and prejudice, however it arises – alerting them to available support schemes, networks and ways to be a good ally. Across the series, it became quickly apparent that the Bar and its embedded attitudes are changing, but often not fast enough. At the session on Women at the Bar, issues of attrition and inequality regarding maternity leave were discussed at length. In addition, personal stories were told by panel members at the Disability at the Bar event. It was made clear that there is still an enormous amount of work
Drawing from this feedback, the department plans to take this series even further next year, broadening the scope of events to include topical student debates and interactive workshops. We are mindful of the key role online learning played in getting this series off the ground and are hoping to take a blended approach to our EDI events in the future, maintaining a strong online provision even as we move back to in-person learning. Certainly, there are access and EDI considerations inherent in the online format itself, particularly as it allows for immediate closed captioning functions for those who need it and cuts down on prohibitive travel costs for those who would otherwise need to travel to the Inn. Taking all of this into consideration, we are keen to move forward with this series as a central part of our Qualifying Session provision next year. By Julia Armfield Education and Student Support Manager
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Modern Slavery and the Modern Slavery Act
MODERN SLAVERY AND THE MODERN SLAVERY ACT:
Inner Temple Online Advocacy Weekend 27–29 November 2020 By Master Alistair McCreath
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It is a sobering thought that over 5000 slavery offences were recorded by the police in England and Wales in the year ending March 2019. In the same period, there were nearly 7000 referrals through the National Referral Mechanism; 28 per cent of these people were UK nationals. The Salvation Army supported over 2000 potential victims, 48 per cent of whom had experienced labour exploitation and 39 per cent of whom had suffered sexual exploitation. The scale of the international problem is unknown, but it is certainly on a very large scale. Its effects reach into our own country; each of us has very likely but unknowingly bought goods produced by people living in slavery. It was this important topic that formed the theme of the November 2020 Advocacy Weekend.
There is not space to write about all of them in detail, but it is sufficient to say that our speakers all have extensive experience in this area: many of them have written textbooks and academic papers at a high level, and lectured to distinguished bodies internationally. We could not have assembled a more knowledgeable or experienced team. They have our huge thanks.
The weekend began, as it usually does, with a keynote address delivered by the Rev Dr Carrie Pemberton Ford, Director of the Cambridge Centre for Applied Research in Human Trafficking, which she established in 2008. She spoke, from a deep knowledge of slavery, of the terrible effects on its victims and of the exploitation and abuse perpetrated by traffickers. She also shared some valuable lifestyle advice – an unexpected bonus.
The scale of the international problem is unknown, but it is certainly on a very large scale. Its effects reach into our own country; each of us has very likely but unknowingly bought goods produced by people living in slavery.
The Inn has over the years been fortunate in the quality of the members of the Saturday morning panel. This time was no exception. Michelle Brewer is a tribunal judge in the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, after many years of practice at the Bar in this field. Philippa Southwell is a solicitor who has dealt with hundreds of these cases in courts at all levels in the UK as well as in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Dr Eileen Walsh is a psychologist with a strong interest in the impact of trafficking and slavery on mental health. Phil Brewer is now Director of Intelligence at STOP THE TRAFFIK, a global charity combatting modern slavery and trafficking; he previously headed the Metropolitan Police Modern Slavery Unit. Ben Douglas-Jones QC is well known to those with experience of trafficking cases as the go-to silk in this field. He has appeared in many of the leading cases in the last ten years or so.
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They spoke across a wide range of topics, including the processes involved in the prevention of trafficking and slavery; the effects on victims; the difficulties in identifying victims, many of whom live in daily fear of those who trafficked them and brought them into slavery; and in ensuring they are treated justly and fairly within the courts and tribunal system.
To those of us who have been present at many Saturday morning panels, this was, in a very high-quality field, about the best we have heard. The feedback from the students is more important. Amongst the comments were these: “…The speakers were excellent…all extremely engaging and to the point; they helped to clarify the purpose of the weekend and reminded me of why I am so interested in working in the field… speakers were some of the best in the field and all spoke clearly, concisely and with a clear passion for the work they do…” The students then went on to grapple with ethical problems, including what to do if you think your client is guilty or if s/he admits guilt, if you inadvertently come by some confidential information, and if the judge makes a decision favourable to your client that is based on what you know to be a critical error of fact. This was a great opportunity for students at an early stage of their professional development to discuss ethical questions and to learn from practitioners the importance of strong adherence to strict ethical principles in the professional life of a barrister.
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Then onto the advocacy masterclass. Tom Godfrey, to whom many thanks are due, gave up his time to help with this. He and Abimbola Johnson – of whom more later – gave a demonstration of submission advocacy, accompanied by some helpful insights into case analysis and the tactical decisions that barristers must make. The outcome of the discussion appeared to be that the defence submission was lacking in substance and ill-judged, thus sparing the judge the difficult task of giving a ruling.
The fact that we were unable to be at our normal venue, Cumberland Lodge, made it a rather different weekend from those we have been used to over the years – no Saturday evening concert, no log fires to sit by, and so on. But there was much to learn and people with huge expertise to learn from. And although the students did not have the usual opportunities to mix in a relaxed social environment with practitioners and others with long experience in the law, they gained a great deal from the weekend in other important ways.
The focus of the rest of the weekend was the Student Advocacy Exercise. The exercise was written by Abi Johnson and centred on a young and vulnerable defendant who had been arrested during a police investigation into drug supply. The students were asked to make submissions on whether the proceedings should, or should not, be stayed as an abuse of process. Students were required to apply the general jurisprudence in relation to abuse of process to the particular defence provided to young people by section 45(4) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, to the Code for Crown Prosecutors, and the four-stage approach set out in CPS guidance on human trafficking etc (2019). They also had to factor into their arguments the fact that the defendant had gone through the National Referral Mechanism and had been found to have been involved in offending through modern slavery, despite which the CPS had decided to proceed against him.
There are many who deserve much gratitude for making the event happen at all and for making it so successful. Julia Armfield is at the top of the list. She got started on planning this in the very early part of 2020. She offered gentle reminders to the organisers when necessary and kept everything on track. She coped with the last-minute panics with great calmness. She moved us from virtual room to virtual room over the weekend without a single hitch. In short, in every way possible she made the event possible and successful. So she and her team deserve and have our profound gratitude.
This was a complex exercise but one which enhanced the knowledge of the students and gave them an excellent opportunity to develop and display their advocacy skills. It was clear that those in the group where I role-played the judge had benefitted hugely from that opportunity. I am sure this was true of all the other groups as well. Was the weekend a success? I think it was. But as one who played a small part in organising it, I would say that, wouldn’t I? Happily, the students agreed. The feedback was very positive. The students had enjoyed the weekend and had learned a good deal from it.
So also does Abi Johnson, by far the more important contributor of the organisers. Her knowledge of the topic is considerable and her input to the course materials was massive. The group tutors gave up most of their weekend to make their vital contribution. All the feedback made it plain how much the students valued the help and advice they had received from them and the Sunday judges – such an important part of the event. Last, but far from least, it is to be noted that although there was no Saturday evening concert, there was instead a Saturday evening quiz. It was created and presented by none other than Master Alastair Hodge. Although this was not a part of the weekend included in the Evaluation Questionnaires, I have absolutely no doubt that had the rest of the weekend turned out to be an unmitigated disaster, the students, if asked, would nonetheless have said the whole thing had been worthwhile for the quiz alone. His Honour Alistair McCreath
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STUDENT SOCIETIES INNER TEMPLE DRAMA SOCIETY By Charlotte McDonald The Inner Temple Drama Society would usually report on our host of productions and classes. This year has, of course, been rather different. We are happy, however, to report that the society remains active and thriving. Although we yearn for the time to be together again, much like theatre throughout the country, we continue to be present in digital formats. As our 2020 productions were unable to go ahead, we ran weekly virtual dance classes during the first lockdown for anyone to join. It was fun to get people together from across the country every weekend.
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In the absence of our usual pantomime, we brought some happiness and laughter over the winter period in a new way; with a cast of old and new members, we put together our first virtual production, You’re on Mute, Your Honour! It can still be viewed for free via our social media accounts. The committee continues to work behind the scenes, and we thank Madeleine van Oss for her work as outgoing President. The remainder of the committee remains for 2021, and we hope that this year we can put on the productions that we were unable to last year. Looking ahead, we are working towards holding a virtual variety summer production, details of which will be released soon. After the festival was cancelled last year, we had hoped that we could take our original production Guilty to the Edinburgh Fringe this year. Unfortunately, we cannot due to the ongoing uncertainty, but hope that we can use this year to prepare well and take the best production possible up in 2022. We cannot wait to see our members again, either in person or in our next virtual show. Student members of the Inn are welcome to join the Drama Society at any time. Please do get in touch with us on social media or our mailing list through innertempledrama@gmail.com.
Student Societies
INNER TEMPLE STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION (ITSA) By Mia Chaudhuri-Julyan This year, ITSA has worked hard to deliver a new and innovative programme of events remotely during the pandemic. We kicked off the year with a Halloween quiz (with our expert quizmaster Master Alastair Hodge) and pumpkin-carving competition. At Christmas, we also organised a remote Secret Santa, with student members from all over the world posting each other gifts based on each other’s interests. We ended 2020 by teaming up with all three of the other Inns Students’ Associations for a remote scavenger hunt, which was a hugely enjoyable, relaxed opportunity to meet new people. We were especially proud to kick off the new year with a whopping 12 fantastic pupillage panel and Q&A evenings. Eight of these were practice area-themed events and the final four were specifically tailored to groups who are underrepresented at the Bar. We were delighted to be joined by over 50 practitioners doing a huge array of work, who generously gave up their time to share their experiences and wisdom with students. We were delighted that over 1300 people attended our series of pupillage evenings across January. In our efforts to further promote access to the profession, ITSA also hosted our most successful event in February: The Unofficial Guide to Bar Scholarships. Four hundred and fourteen people joined us to hear a panel of recent Inner Temple Bar scholarship recipients share their advice and words of encouragement for the scholarship interviews taking place in March. We also offered attendees a chance to ask more personalised questions of our panellists in individual breakout rooms. Having received enormously positive feedback, we held a further event on 26 April specifically for Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) scholarship applicants. Additionally, this spring we collaborated with the Inner Temple BAME Network to launch a brand-new mock pupillage interview scheme, which we hope will offer BAME students at Inner Temple further support in attaining pupillage. Following a successful inter-Inn interactive social event in December with the other Inns’ students’ associations, we are also pleased to be hosting another social event with Middle Temple this spring. Finally, we will be launching our brand-new website, built from scratch this academic year. We hope that this will provide us with a platform to share invaluable resources as well as being able to upgrade our marketing and events output, such as making notes and videos from our previous careers events available to students. ITSA remains hopeful that we may yet be able to host some in-person events before September. We would like to thank all members of the Inn who have offered us support in delivering our various activities this year.
Congratulations to the COMMOOT 2021 Winners
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INNER TEMPLE MOOTING SOCIETY By Lutfullahil Majid Mahdi This year has been unique in that all the activities had to be carried out online, but other than that, it was business as usual for the Mooting Society. As with most years, we were occupied with organising our very own Lawson and Inter-Varsity moots and participating in a range of external competitions, including the Vis, ELSA, Manfred Lachs Space Law and the ICC moots. We are delighted to announce that a team representing the Inner Temple became the champions of the 2021 ELSA UK COMMOOT. Reflecting a wider move to online hearings for the profession, the Inner Temple Mooting Society found opportunity in the new Zoom methodology. Where once the participants of the Inter-Varsity Competition had to come to London, a move to remote hearings allowed greater participation and representation from around the country. We identified the benefits of this in terms of diversity and access and thus resolved to hold a remote preliminary round for the InterVarsity moot, thereby allowing more universities to engage with the Inn’s calendar of events. This, however, came with a series of new challenges. For example, we could no longer have an in-person drinks reception – for which we came up with our own innovative solution. We delivered a bottle of Prosecco to each participant with a personalised message, to be opened during the virtual panel discussion via Zoom. In the coming year, we have ambitious plans for the society. First, we plan on holding less-formal weekly moots that require less preparation from participants. This will help hone their advocacy and prepare them for competitive moots. Secondly, a programme of educational talks broadly focused on advocacy will be set up and open to all students. Finally, we hope to set up a website with an interactive calendar that should maximise student participation in these events. In the months following the first iteration of this article, the society worked closely with Master Mark Hill – Master of Mooting at the Inner Temple – and Jonathan ShafferGoddard – Barrister Liaison to the Mooting Society, to take mooting at the Inn to new heights. The society’s notable accomplishments are listed below:
I. THE INNER TEMPLE ECCLESIASTICAL LAW MOOT 2021 Organised in association with the Ecclesiastical Law Society, the semi-final was judged by Master Mark Hill, also the former Chair of the Ecclesiastical Law Society, and the final was judged by a panel of esteemed Ecclesiastical law practitioners including and curated by the Dean of Arches, Morag Ellis QC – the most senior judge of the Ecclesiastical Courts.
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committee for their dedication and commitment to providing an incredible year for mooting at the Inner Temple. I am honoured to have been by their side throughout the year. Vice Presidents: Batuhan Betin, Tomas Higginson; External Mooting Coordinators: Saorise Horan, Karolina Cwiertnia; Internal Mooting Coordinators: Katharine Fellows, Ellen Boyes; Intervarsity Coordinators: Joshua Brindle, Georgina Stein-Hemmings; Education & Training Coordinators: Harry Stratton, Rachel du Plessis; Treasurer: Camilla Charleson Gallacher; Clerk: Daniel Jukes.
INNER TEMPLE DEBATING SOCIETY By Alex Ferrigno and Shannon Knight The Inner Temple Debating Society has embraced the move to online meetings, with our weekly sessions continuing as normal throughout this academic year. We are proud to have members of the Inn regularly joining us from all over the country, and hope that such a practice can continue post-pandemic via hybrid online/in-person debates. We held our Christmas party via Zoom in December, with themed debates and quizzes galore, and even a special guest appearance from Master Alastair Hodge. It has been a pleasure to have so many new faces in the society this year, and we hope to meet some of them in person once such things are possible again. The annual Inter-Varsity Competition was held in January, with the virtual setting allowing for university attendees from across the globe. Thanks to the tireless efforts of our VicePresident, Camilla Charleson Gallacher, the first ever digital Inter-Varsity was a resounding success. We are grateful for the Harrison family’s continued support and participation, and for all the assistance the Inn provides. In particular, we thank Master Guy Fetherstonhaugh QC and Master Saira Kabir Sheikh QC for their participation in the final judging panel, and Sellisha Lockyer for her constant support. Our members have continued to attend competitions across the UK and internationally, albeit without leaving their homes, and have recently participated in university competitions at Imperial, LSE, Manchester and Utrecht. Internally, and writing this as we move into the latter part of the year, we are looking forward to both the Rawlinson Cup Debate and the Inner Temple Public Speaking Competition, which are always highlights of the calendar. Finally, a huge thanks to all our committee from presidents Alex Ferrigno and Shannon Knight. We have our fingers crossed for a celebratory summer social before handing the torch over to next year’s presidents.
II. MANFRED LACHS SPACE LAW MOOT 2021 – WINNER OF THE EUROPEAN ROUNDS Team Inner Temple (comprising of Harry Stratton, Batuhan Betin and Clare Parkhouse) went on to win the European Rounds of the competition with Batuhan Betin being awarded the “Best Oralist” award.
III. AN ONLINE MOOTING WORKSHOP The workshop was led by Harry Stratton (Education and Training Coordinator) and Batuhan Betin (Vice President) and was open to all student members of the Inn.
IV. THE INNER TEMPLE COMMERCIAL LAW MOOT 2021 The Committee organised this moot in association with Master Camilla Bingham and One Essex Court to offer student members a quality commercial moot over the summer. A great deal of the society’s success is attributable to the sincerity and support from Master Mark Hill and Jonathan Shaffer-Goddard. Finally, I would like to thank everyone on the “Peggy” prior to the Debating Society Christmas Social
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Call to the Bar
CALL TO THE BAR Since the start of the pandemic, the Inn has continued to Call student members to the Bar, albeit remotely. We send our congratulations to the 235 individuals called to the Bar over the past year and look forward to celebrating with you in person in 2022. The images on these pages show some of the students who were called remotely over the past year.
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Mequissa Baptiste
Annabel Lenton
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Sana Hamid
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Deladem Dzotsi
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A Year of Online Training
A YEAR OF ONLINE TRAINING: A Steep Learning Curve and Lessons for the Future Master Cheryl Thomas, Dean of Education One year ago in July 2020, we had just embarked on the Inn’s first ever fully online advocacy training course. Since then, the Inn has delivered all its pupil advocacy training, new practitioner advocacy and ethics training, and even the Inn’s Train the Trainers course, completely online. It was not a matter of choice. But this COVID19-imposed experiment is likely to have a long-term impact on how the Inn delivers professional training. It has been a steep learning curve for us all this last year. New practitioners and pupils were the first members of the Inn to receive their compulsory advocacy and ethics training fully online. The Inn’s amazing advocacy and ethics trainers, and education and training staff had never delivered this training completely online before. I have been doing some form of online teaching for several years at University College London (UCL), but I quickly learned that the requirements of advocacy training presented some unique online challenges.
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THE VALUE OF A PILOT The Inn is especially grateful to a group of six new practitioners who enabled us to pilot the full online training for both advocacy and ethics during summer 2020. The feedback from that pilot course led us to create some new films for advocacy training that pupils and new practitioners could watch in their own time before the live online sessions. These include talks on handling expert witnesses, case analysis, skeleton arguments, closing speeches and cross-examination. The pilot also led us to introduce a ‘social’ element into the advocacy course, with an introductory evening and a chance for trainees to meet both trainers and fellow trainees in advance. Of course, this could not replace the environment of weekend residential advocacy training, but we probably all learned during lockdown that while it is different, it is still valuable to meet and socialise online when nothing else is possible.
VIRTUAL HAMPEL
NOT LETTING COVID-19 DELAY QUALIFICATIONS
The most crucial issue was whether it was going to be possible to deliver the Hampel method virtually. What saved the day for us was that the UCL online learning platform, eXtend, which the Inn was able to use, has one function that is not found on Zoom, Teams or any other platform. On eXtend, a group of advocacy trainers and trainees can be in one virtual room where trainees practice their advocacy skills, and they are recorded doing so. A single trainee can then immediately move to another virtual room with a different trainer, where the two can watch back the trainee’s advocacy performance and the trainee can receive additional feedback. Without this facility, it would not have been possible for the Inn to continue to provide its high-quality Hampel-based advocacy training to new practitioners and pupils, or train new advocacy trainers.
Early on in the pandemic, the Bar Standards Board (BSB) said it would give those in their first three years of practice extra time to complete the compulsory New Practitioners’ Programme (NPP) training. This was helpful, but at the Inner Temple we were determined to ensure that any new practitioner who wanted to complete their compulsory advocacy and ethics training during COVID-19 could. We adopted the same approach with pupils. And one year on, 114 NPs have successfully completed their final compulsory stage of training, and over 72 pupils have completed their required advocacy training.
TRACKING THE IMPACT OF ONLINE TRAINING One of my main roles this last year has been to track and assess participants’ experiences of online training. We decided to do this not just at the end of individual courses but often during courses, so we could quickly identify any specific problems in this new online training environment and address them while the course was going on.
With the feedback they have provided to the Inn over this last year, both the new practitioners and pupils have contributed significantly to our understanding of online training and our thinking about future training.
MAIN LIMITATIONS OF DOING ADVOCACY ONLINE The majority of new practitioners and pupils said there were two main drawbacks for them with online advocacy training: not having a chance for informal discussions with trainers, and not having a chance to get to know the other new practitioners. As one new practitioner explained: “I greatly value the human interaction of residential weekend and the sense of building support for a career at the bar. It can be lonely.” We also asked about specific aspects of advocacy that may have been impacted by being online. While a third (35 per cent) said they did not feel any aspects of advocacy were negatively impacted by the course being online, a third (35 per cent) said they found it difficult to build rapport with a witness online, and a few (15 per cent) found it hard to interrupt a witness online. Some of that may resonate with any barrister that has been conducting remote hearings for the last year.
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MAIN BENEFITS
ADVOCACY REFRESHER COURSES?
But there were not just drawbacks to online advocacy training. Our new practitioners and pupils told us that they felt they had benefited from the training being online without the loss of learning: “I think the Inn have done a tremendous job in adapting to the current pressures that we all face. The course was both intellectually stimulating and allowed for the rigorous practising of advocacy.” The specific benefits identified by new practitioners and pupils alike were the cost and time savings, the chance to practise online advocacy and the time for reflection the longer training period afforded. With training spread over three weeks instead of a single weekend, for some this resulted in noticeable learning benefits: “The advantage this course had was time to consider feedback in between sessions.”
The feedback from new practitioners has also highlighted a demand for post-NPP advocacy training. Almost all new practitioners (87 per cent) who did their training in the last year said they would find it helpful to have refresher advocacy training in the years to come. Most said they would like this three to five years on from completing their NPP training. This was extremely valuable feedback and will be one of my priorities as Dean when developing the Inn’s new established practitioner programme.
WHAT WILL POST-COVID-19 TRAINING BE LIKE? Others pointed the way to how we may approach training in future: “There are many benefits to the course being online; however, if possible it might be useful to have a mix of online and in-person training.” We specifically asked everyone that took part in the online training whether there are any elements of advocacy training that the Inn should consider keeping online in future when face-to-face training can resume. Almost every single new practitioner and pupil (96 per cent) said yes. Most supported a mixed approach. In particular, most agreed that some preparatory elements (like case analysis and case conference) could be online, but that the advocacy practice exercises were best in person. One new practitioner summed up the experience of many: “Part of the benefit of this training is lost when it is virtual, such as an opportunity to socialise, network, and have further private conversation with trainers and practitioners alike. I feel a balance can be found however, with part of the sessions online but the bulk of the advocacy on a residential weekend.”
WHAT WILL ADVOCACY AND ETHICS TRAINING LOOK LIKE IN THE FUTURE? Given our experience over the last year, the Inn is likely to provide a mix of face-to-face and online training elements. But there will be challenges in delivering our professional training both face-to-face and online. We cannot simply offer an immediate choice of either face-to- face or online for all our compulsory training, as this would double the trainers needed. The Inn’s new education and training suite will provide the opportunity to pilot some combined face-to-face and online sessions, with some participants in person at the Inn and others joining the same session online. But any new approaches like this will require careful monitoring to ensure that everyone is receiving the same high-quality learning experience. Life at the Bar will not be the same post-COVID-19, and this last year has shown us how we need to and can adapt our training for this new environment. The last word should go to one of our new practitioners who said on completing this year’s online advocacy course: “Although I suggest face-toface/residential is better, this was a very successful course. I was impressed with my trainers. I felt honoured to have had their time and attention. I learnt and I am applying my learnings. I feel I am a better advocate for this course. I say, Encore!” Professor Cheryl Thomas QC Dean of Education
Graphics from the Inner Temple New Practitioner Course Online Training
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Mooting in the Inner Temple
MOOTING IN THE INNER TEMPLE By Master Mark Hill
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Moot Case 1930
Moot Case 1931
In common with the other Inns of Court, and many law schools both in the United Kingdom and overseas, the Inner Temple has a long and noble tradition of mooting. The number of competitions has mushroomed in recent years. Historically, mooting was a core component in the training of young barristers, a function which in which the Inns collectively are now more directly involved once again with the creation of Inns of Court College of Advocacy. The enhanced facilities soon available as a result of Project Pegasus will help facilitate greater use of mooting as a means of honing the forensic skills required for a successful practice at the Bar.
In his magisterial note circulated at Call Nights, Master Baker reminds us in that the status of barrister and Bencher were the principal degrees of learning in the medieval Inns of Court, analogous to those of bachelor and master in the universities. They were not conferred, as such, but assumed through performing in disputation or lecturing, respectively. The disputations were commonly known as moots, which Baker describes as “oral pleading exercises of daunting complexity”. The term moot is believed to derive from a Scandinavian word for community assemblies meeting for legislative or judicial purposes. Inner Temple Hall was arranged to resemble a court, with a bench and a bar. And this is the Bar to which students were called: the Bar of the Inn, not of any Court. But over time, the performance of mooting ceased to be the mark of graduation, being replaced by the Call ceremony with which we have become familiar, and latterly (and temporarily) via Zoom. Senior practitioners were required to deliver lectures (or readings), after which they were entitled to sit on the bench of moots, where they were styled Benchers. That rite of passage has also been lost, but many Benchers still give generously of their time to coach mooters and to sit as judges in moot courts.
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Education & Training
There is a rich seam of mooting running through the Inn’s archives, dating back to the reign of Edward III, when the readings and disputations begin to emerge. Medieval law students would be expected to learn and recite writs and pleadings. Only after two or three years would they be judged ready to argue a moot at the bar in the hall. Up until the 16th century, private study was considered a supplement to these aural means of instruction through moots and readings. But with the increasing availability of printed books, this gradually reversed with the theatricality of a moot becoming supplemental to the reading of textbooks, commentaries and the work of the glossators. It is recorded that many barristers were reluctant to participate in postCall obligations such as mooting, and some even paid an advanced lump sum of fines to avoid it altogether. The system was suspended in 1642, when all the Inns were temporarily vacated by reason of the Civil War. Readings ceased, and moots were revived only in an elementary form to enable barristers to graduate. There was a movement in the 1650s to reform legal education so that lectures might be given on the common law, but nothing happened until after the Restoration in 1660 – and then the decision was made to resuscitate the medieval system, albeit in truncated form. The Reader’s feast in the autumn of 1661, provided by Sir Heneage Finch (later Lord Nottingham, Lord Chancellor), was particularly magnificent and was graced by the presence of King Charles II. But it was to be the Grand Days rather than the lectures which survived. Readers preferred to pay the fine for not reading. The Inn doubtless found the fines more useful than the lectures. After the 1670s, law students were left entirely to their own devices – as Blackstone put it, “by a tedious and lonely process to extract the theory of law from a mass of undigested learning”. The Inns of Court survived this collapse of legal education because they alone had power to call to the Bar.
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For several years, the Inn’s International Committee has co-sponsored the Central and Eastern European Mooting Competition. The University of Tbilisi were the worthy winners of the most recent competition, held online in May 2021, rather than in Bucharest as planned. Next year, the competition moves to Budapest, where I will continue to be involved, together with Master Beal and Master Zatschler. A more recent initiative has been this year’s collaboration with the British High Commission in India and Jindal Global Law School. A fiendish problem was devised by our Indian partners, with input from Jonathan Schaffer-Goddard, a former President of the Inn’s Mooting Society. Early rounds were judged by university staff and junior barristers, the semi-finals by Master Juliet May and by me, with Master Treasurer generously presiding at the final. This model of co-operation, both with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and with an overseas law school, allows the Inn to promote due process and the rule of law in other jurisdictions, and to foster excellence in advocacy and professional standards. Soft diplomacy at its very best. On the home front, and animated by the state-of-theart facilities shortly to become available through the successful delivery of Project Pegasus, we wish to create a repository of moot problems and a pool a of volunteers (at all levels of Call and judicial office) willing to act as coaches for the various competitions and as judges for the growing number of moots in which students are now involved. Anyone willing to help in any of these tasks would be welcome to contact me via the Treasury Office. Master Mark Hill Master Mark Hill is Assistant Master of the Moots and a member of the Inn’s International Committee
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Students were still arguing cases with each other in chambers, halls and dining clubs, and moots regularly took place. It was the system of legal education which collapsed rather than the essential activities crucial for learning the craft of the courtroom. A Moots Committee was formed in December 1925, under the Chairmanship of the Treasurer, to revive the tradition of mooting in the Inn. In addition to regular moots, there were to be grand moots held in Hall, the first one taking place in January 1926, with the Lord Chancellor presiding.
Students were still arguing cases with each other in chambers, halls and dining clubs, and moots regularly took place. So, it has continued into the present day. And whilst mooting may no longer have the significance it once did in relation to being called to the Bar, or elevated to the bench of the Inn, it remains a key component in the training of young barristers. The student-run Mooting Society is responsible for the organisation of internal and external competitions. It organises the Inter-Varsity Moot with teams from law schools up and down the country; and the much-coveted Lawson Cup is awarded to the best of the Inn’s mooters after an exhausting knockout competition. In the past year, as is clear from the President’s report, the Inner Temple students have excelled, bringing home a host of prizes and establishing new competitions in commercial law, as well as the niche area of ecclesiastical law. This renaissance is particularly praiseworthy as the COVID-19 pandemic has compelled it all to be done remotely on Zoom and other platforms. Sir Heneage Finch (later Lord Nottingham, Lord Chancellor)
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We Need Your Help
WE NEED YOUR HELP The Inn relies to a great extent on the willingness of its members to dedicate time and effort to support education and training activities. If you are a member who would like to volunteer to help, please see our Guide to Volunteering Opportunities in the Members’ section of the website or contact the Education and Training Department (contact details on page 57).
GROUP LEADERS/JUDGES FOR STUDENT ADVOCACY WEEKENDS The Education and Training Department organises three student conference weekends a year at external venues in Windsor and Crewe. The weekends focus on a particular legal topic and include panel presentations from experts, as well as sentencing exercises and advocacy exercises. Previous weekends have covered a broad range of topics, including Modern Slavery, Transgender Law in Practice, Inquest, Terrorism and Vulnerable Witnesses. Barrister members over seven years’ Call act as group leaders and judicial members judge the student advocacy exercises. We are keen to diversify our volunteer pool as much as possible, so if you would like to volunteer to be a group leader or judge at a future weekend, please contact Julia Armfield.
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OUTREACH The Outreach team organises a range of outreach activities for school and university students at the Inn and across England and Wales. We are particularly keen to hear from members on Circuit. If you are interested in helping with these events, please contact Daisy Mortimer.
Previous weekends have covered a broad range of topics, including Modern Slavery, Transgender Law in Practice, Inquest, Terrorism and Vulnerable Witnesses.
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SCHOLARSHIP INTERVIEWS The Inn offers funds in excess of £1.7 million annually to be distributed as scholarships and exhibitions for Bar training. Interviews are typically held on two consecutive weekends in March for Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) awards and over a single weekend in June for law conversion awards. If you would like to volunteer to assist with the interviewing process, please contact Georgina Everatt.
MARSHALLING The Marshalling Scheme enables pupils and BPTC students to spend a day or days (up to a week) in court with a judge. As a result of the scheme’s popularity, the Inn is seeking more judges to participate. Please contact Richard Loveridge for details.
MENTORING AND MOCK INTERVIEWS The Mentoring Scheme aims to provide students with advice, guidance and a point of contact during their initial stages of becoming a barrister. Mentors are usually allocated at the beginning of the academic year and the demand is always very high. The Mock Interview Scheme gives students a chance to refine their interview technique with the support of an established barrister before they undertake a ‘real’ pupillage interview. The scheme is highly valued by our student members and consistently receives positive feedback. The time commitment is flexible but typically amounts to around one to three hours per year. Please contact Helen Gaskell if you would like to help.
ADVOCACY TRAINING FACULTY The Inn’s dedicated Advocacy Trainers provide compulsory advocacy training courses for pupils and new practitioners, and they are increasingly being called upon to provide specialist advocacy training for established practitioners. If you are over seven years’ Call and would be interested in undertaking the advocacy teacher-training course to support this core function of the Inn, please contact David Miller.
The Council of the Inns of Court
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THE COUNCIL OF THE INNS OF COURT PUPILLAGE MATCHED FUNDED SCHEME
COIC WELCOMES APPLICATIONS FOR MATCHED FUNDING FOR 2022–2023 AND 2023–2024 PUPILLAGES The COIC Pupillage Matched Funded Scheme (PMF) helps provide additional pupillages in chambers and other approved training organisations, predominantly engaged in legally aided work. Encouragingly, a growing number of chambers are applying for COIC matched funded grants. COIC is set to support 32 pupillages in 2021. This is an impressive improvement on the scheme’s first year of operation in 2014, when it supported 14 pupillages.
HOW THE SCHEME WORKS It is a prerequisite of the scheme that chambers understand that matched funded pupillages are in addition to those they would have offered in any event. COIC match pupillage funding already provided by chambers with a total grant of £9550 for 2022–2023 London pupillages and £8150 for 2022–2023 out-of-London pupillages, and £9650 for 2023–2024 London pupillages and £8250 for 2023–2024 out-of-London pupillages, to fund the first six months of a second pupillage. Chambers are responsible for ensuring that the total pupillage award meets the BSB’s minimum award for the year in question. COIC appreciates that the receipt of grants is all the more important to chambers during the global pandemic and are offering flexibility, with the opportunity to defer awards where necessary.
HOW TO APPLY Applications to match fund 2022–2023 and 2023–2024 pupillages are invited between 1 September and 22 October 2021. Decisions will be communicated during the week commencing 8 November 2021. Online applications can be made at coic.org.uk/ pupillage-matched-funding. To find out more, please email Joanna Robinson at COIC: jrobinson@coic.org.uk. Mrs Justice Lieven Chair – COIC Pupillage Matched Funding Grants Committee
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SPIRE BARRISTERS
NEXUS CHAMBERS WILLSTEAD
Spire Barristers, the only specialist family and public law (Court of Protection etc) set on the North Eastern Circuit and in the north of England, has been in existence now for a period of three years, within which time our excellent reputation within these practice areas has continued to be secured. Our members are amongst the most formidable and dynamic of practitioners, and the highly specialist pupillages we offer and provide are, we consider, second to none!
Nexus, the chambers of Michael Mansfield QC, is a growing common law set mainly undertaking legal aid work. Prior to the introduction of COIC’s Pupillage Matched Funding Scheme, Nexus was unable to offer pupillage. Since 2015, with the assistance of the scheme, we have taken two pupils per year; we are delighted that of the nine pupils who have completed their pupillages with us, seven have accepted offers of tenancy at Nexus. We are particularly pleased that both of our 2019–20 pupils have joined us as tenants, despite the challenges posed by the pandemic.
It has been possible, thanks only to the grants provided to us by COIC through the PMF Scheme, for us to recruit two pupils each year since Spire Barristers’ inception, all of whom have gone on to become thriving and exceptional junior tenants. We have always had the work to assist two pupils to build successful practices, but as over 85 per cent of our work is publicly funded, we have only been able to afford to fund one full pupillage a year. Over recent years, the chambers’ age demographic has altered such that we have been keen to continue to build our membership, requiring us to focus our recruitment attention on the junior end to enable us to pass on our knowledge and expertise. It is thanks to the fabulous opportunity offered by this scheme that the chambers has been assisted in securing continuing growth from the bottom, where strong roots are now taking hold.
Thanks to COIC’s generous support in awarding our funding well in advance, we are able to plan ahead and have generally been offering pupillages 13 to 19 months prior to the pupils’ commencement dates. We believe that this is to the benefit of candidates, particularly those from disadvantaged economic backgrounds, because it allows the best candidates the security of knowing they have a pupillage before embarking upon the vocational stage of training. We pride ourselves on our fair recruitment and selection procedures. As a result, we have recruited some extremely talented pupils from a wide range of backgrounds. We have taken pleasure in seeing our pupils flourish as advocates and very much hope that COIC will continue to support chambers through the PMF Scheme.
Sarah Blackmore
James Manning
Joint Head of Chambers and Director of Pupil Training
Head of Pupillage
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Library Facilities and Services
LIBRARY FACILITIES AND SERVICES
The Library is open to all members of the Inner Temple and to members of the other Inns of Court. It is a legal reference Library, staffed by experienced information professionals, which offers users L access to a wide range of print and electronic resources in a comfortable working environment.
The Library offers the following facilities and services, some only when we re-open the Treasury Building: A quiet environment for study. A comprehensive collection of English legal materials, including
the most up-to-date editions of major practitioner texts. An extensive archive of old editions of practitioners’ works. Specialist Commonwealth and Scottish collections. Collections which are all on-site and easily accessible. A range of commercial legal research databases. PCs for online research, access to email and word processing. Equipment and software for users with hearing or visual impairment. Free Wi-Fi. Photocopying, scanning and printing facilities. A document supply service. An enquiry service (in person, by telephone and by email). Assistance with online searching and legal research. An overnight loans scheme for barristers. Legal research training for pupils and students. Legal research FAQs on our website. Tours for students and pupils, plus a virtual tour on our website. Web access to the library catalogues of the four Inns. AccessToLaw, a gateway site providing annotated
links to selected UK, Commonwealth and worldwide free legal websites (accesstolaw.com). Current Awareness blog for legal news, changes in
legislation and new case law (innertemplelibrary.com). A quarterly electronic newsletter. Social media pages with information on Library
services, news and events (facebook.com/ innertemplelibrary and twitter.com/inner_temple). A range of guides available in the Library or
for downloading from our website.
More information on the Library’s collections, services and contact details can be viewed at www.innertemplelibrary.org.uk
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Never a Truer Word…
NEVER A TRUER WORD… Tracey Dennis reflects on operating the Library’s enquiry service remotely.
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© Abhimany / Bose
“The needs of the barrister are diverse and sudden.” These words of a former librarian of this Inn, Wallace Breem, have proved particularly pertinent during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Since March 2020, the Library has been operating a remote document supply service. At first, we had no choice, as the initial lockdown meant the Library had to close, and as all staff were reliant on public transport, we were not able to have a skeleton staff on-site to undertake any copying requests. We could operate a remote document supply service as staff had access to the databases at home. When we were able to reopen, restrictions on the number of staff who could be on-site on any given day meant that we decided to continue with the remote service wherever possible. Working in this way did bring various challenges, but one obvious outcome was that it became very clear just how much we have to rely on the hard-copy collections and the wide range of materials that barristers need to use. We always knew that barristers require materials often without a lot of notice, but the diverse range of requests that we received during the lockdowns of 2020 and into 2021 illustrated this even more clearly. It also became evident that we could not operate the service using the databases alone.
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Looking back at statistics for document supply requests during 2020, we noted that half the requests were for items that we could not supply from the subscription databases, even though we did increase our access to online subscription services in the course of the year. The statistics for January–March 2021 show that 59 per cent of requests were met using online resources and 41 per cent by copying from printed books.
Looking back at statistics for document supply requests during 2020, we noted that half the requests were for items that we could not supply from the subscription databases, even though we did increase our access to online subscription services in the course of the year. The database providers generously gave additional access for specified periods of time, and we paid extra for content that was in heavy demand, subscribing to selected Westlaw books and to additional law report series via vLex Justis. This helped considerably. However, in the first lockdown, we had to ask the other Inn libraries to copy materials for us as they were able to have limited staff on-site; and when we reopened in summer 2020, we found we still had to copy from our hard-copy collections to fulfil many requests.
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Why was this? Cost was a major concern. To subscribe to the full range of Westlaw books would be very expensive, so we had to choose those we felt would be in highest demand.
The time span covered by the databases can sometimes be very restrictive for research purposes. If someone is trying to view a piece of legislation as in force at a particular point in time, the databases are of limited value. Westlaw allows historic searching of acts back to 1991 and Lexis does the same back to 1998. A recent enquiry to find the Public Record Act 1877 as it was in 1957 and 1958 necessitated using old editions of Halsbury’s Statutes and the Current Law Legislation Citator rather than the databases.
Another factor was that Westlaw and LexisNexis only have current editions of textbooks, not old editions. We received many requests for extracts from non-current editions, and these we could only fulfil by copying from our ‘archive’ of old editions. So, whilst we are able to access the current year’s White Book on Westlaw, a pupil asking whether CPR 25.1(1)(g) had an equivalent in the RSC could only be answered by looking in our old editions of the White Book.
We always knew that barristers require materials often without a lot of notice, but the diverse range of requests that we received during the lockdowns of 2020 and into 2021 illustrated this even more clearly. A further problem was that for Westlaw books, we did not have access to PDF chapters. This meant that the version we had, although it reproduced the text exactly, did not reflect the appearance of the hard copy. We always explained this to users, and if they decided against the online version (usually because they intended to use it in court), we had no option but to copy from the book. The nature of the requests we received also highlighted the challenges involved in having to rely on online resources. We are often asked for older law report series, which are not available on the main subscription databases. Requests for items from The Times Law Reports, Law Journal Reports, Law Times Reports and Criminal Law Review from before 1986, for example, have to be copied from the volumes in the Library as they are not on Westlaw or LexisNexis.
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As mentioned earlier, we can never predict what we may be asked for. The request for the index of Three Books on Embassies by Alberico Gentili (originally published in 1594) meant that we had to send staff to the basement to retrieve the required material. It was no surprise that this was not available online. One of our main specialisms is Commonwealth law. We are often asked to obtain older cases and legislation and, as with much English material, anything that is not current is difficult if not impossible to find online. For instance, a request for the Antigua and Barbuda Appeals to Privy Council Order (SI 1967 No 224), as modified and retitled by the Antigua and Barbuda Modification of Enactments Order 1981 (SI 1981 No 1105) could be fulfilled only by using the legislation on the shelf in the Library. Wallace Breem’s words, written in 1971, have proved to be as relevant today as they were 50 years ago. This is not to say that online databases are without value – we were able to fulfil a great many requests by having access to the databases while working from home; but because of factors such as cost, and the varied requirements of our members, it is clear that it is the combination of electronic resources and extensive hard-copy collections that enables us to meet the information needs of our users. Tracey Dennis Deputy Librarian
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What Does It Mean to Be Anti-Racist in a Profession Full of Privileged People?
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE ANTI-RACIST IN A PROFESSION FULL OF PRIVILEGED PEOPLE? By Master Leslie Thomas, from a lecture delivered via webinar on Monday 15 February 2021.
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Let me tell you a story. As I entered the courthouse, I had to pass through security. There was a reasonably long queue. I got into line, had my robes under my arm, my wig on top of my papers, which were tied with the traditional pink ribbon – the trademark and badge of recognition for the jobbing barrister. Many of the people entering the courtroom who were waiting in line looked like me. We shared the same skin colour: black. However, it was clear to me that these people were not lawyers waiting to get into court, but more likely to be court users, members of the lay public, either claimants or defendants, or friends and family of claimants or defendants, or perhaps even witnesses.
“Firstly, we have to be appreciative and have some understanding that our history and system of laws defended a tyrannical empire for many hundreds of years in which human trafficking, enslavement of people, rape and murder of an entire race of people based upon skin colour was lawful and justified.”
There were white faces, too. Some of the white faces were also members of the public, or their friends, family or potential witnesses. Other white faces were lawyers, and they had the same dress code as me. The reality is you cannot miss a brief in court. Many of the white barristers were called upon by the security staff and ushered through. No security guard called me to the front, like my white counterparts. Eventually, I got to the front of the line. I was asked by the security guard what my business was at court. I explained the case I was appearing in. I was then given a solid patdown search, despite the fact that the security scanner had not gone off. My bag was thoroughly searched. I thanked the security guards for their time. I smiled with them. They did not smile with me. I then proceeded to my courtroom. Let me start with some definitions. When I refer to ‘black’, I am not using this term in the 1970s meaning of political blackness, meaning all non-white people who have a common fight against discrimination, and thereby embodying people of African, Caribbean and Asian descent, and other minorities. I personally prefer to use the term ‘people of African heritage or descent’. But the word ‘black’ is very much ingrained in our lexicon, so I might use that as well. But if I want to refer to the ethnic majority in the world population, I shall use the expression ‘people of colour’. So, what does it mean to be anti-racist in a system so full of white privilege? Few of us know much about our racist history. It is quite literally whitewashed. As Akala mentioned in his book Natives, Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire:
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We have a system of laws, which used to see humans as mere chattels. During my lifetime, education and career, we had the ‘sus’ laws; we had a government which refused to outrightly condemn a racist, apartheid system, and even sought to encourage trade with the racist South African government. I believe it is important to understand some of the historical reasons for the differential treatment of black people, and why this may continue to this day.
The professionalised Fire Court Bar helps the Court to do its business and brings more people to the table, willing to mediate a solution, rather than to have the Court try to adjudicate a dispute with unwilling parties.
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In Akala’s Natives, he states: “For black children in Britain, our bodies commit the sin of reminding people racialised as white of an uncomfortable truth about part of how this nation became wealthy, and that the good old days when white power could roam the earth unchallenged are over. They now have to contend with one of their empire’s many legacies – a multi-ethnic mother country.” Anthony Lester and Geoffrey Bindman referred to a widely published lecture delivered in 1969 by Lord Radcliffe, which echoed a theme of the foreign character of Britain’s black communities. Lord Radcliffe was reported to have said that black communities were the ‘guests’ of the white host community; that they were a largely alien wedge; that they carried with their colour a flag of strangeness; and that all their strangeness implied that they were rather colonies of immigrant workers and immigrant settlers in the full sense, many of whom would one day return to their homeland (Lester and Bindman, 1972).
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What Does It Mean to Be Anti-Racist in a Profession Full of Privileged People?
Even in the 2020s, we still have images for these racist views. Men of African heritage in their encounters with the police are often described as powerful, with superhuman strength, needing several police officers to help restrain them. There has been a real discussion about race in the public discourse, following the horrific killing of unarmed black men, particularly the death of George Floyd whose death was captured on video. This has led us to ask questions about race discrimination and racism and how to be antiracist and live and work in a truly anti-racist way.
The legal profession, particularly the senior parts of the profession, lacks meaningful racial diversity. The Diversity at the Bar 2019 statistics and the Bar Standards Board’s figures, last year, make very uncomfortable reading. It has long been well known that there is an under-representation of people of colour in the Chancery and Commercial Bar, and in other specialist sectors. In 2021, there are still no full-time black male High Court judges. There are no black Court of Appeal judges. There are no black Supreme Court judges. The time for talking is over. These facts are there to be considered and analysed.
Racism and discriminatory behaviours pervade all levels of society and our legal system. Differential treatment of people of colour occurs at all levels in the legal system: in encounters with the police, decisions as to whether to charge or not, bail or not, the way that they are prosecuted, type of sentence and length of sentence, treatment in prison, how they are disciplined in prison, whether they receive parole decisions, and so on.
So, does our profession truly believe in a modern, diverse and representative Bar? To answer this question, there is a preliminary question, namely: are we prepared to embrace the fact that there are problems? The concept of institutional racism was coined in 1967 by Carmichael and Hamilton. That brings me on to the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry by Sir William Macpherson. Let me quote from Macpherson’s report:
Differential treatment of people of colour occurs at all levels in the legal system: in encounters with the police, decisions as to whether to charge or not, bail or not, the way that they are prosecuted, type of sentence and length of sentence, treatment in T prison, how they are disciplined in prison, whether they receive parole decisions, and so on. The Lammy Review in 2017, in which David Lammy analysed the disproportionate treatment of ‘BAME’ people in the criminal justice system, makes for depressing reading. Some of the statistics will come as no surprise to anyone who has been following the news, such as the fact that black people are six times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than white people. But it’s not just the police who have a race problem, because in our judiciary BAME defendants were 240 times more likely to be given a prison sentence for a drug offence than white defendants. Interestingly, the review also found that there is no evidence to suggest racial bias in juries’ decisions to convict or acquit, suggesting that our judges have a bigger race problem than our juries do. Under the Equalities Act of 2010, there is a general duty required of public bodies in the exercise of their functions to pay regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act. However, the public sector equality duty does not apply to the exercise of judicial functions; arguably, it should.
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“Unwitting racism can arise because of a lack of understanding, ignorant or mistaken beliefs. It can arise from well-intentioned but patronising words or actions. It can arise from unfamiliarity with the behaviour or cultural traditions of people or families from minority ethnic communities. It can arise from racist stereotyping of black people as potential criminals or troublemakers. Often this arises out of uncritical self-understanding, born out of an inflexible police ethos of a traditional way of doing things. Furthermore, such attitudes can thrive in tightly knit communities, so there can be a collective failure to detect and to outlaw this breed of racism.” For the purposes of our inquiry, the concept of institutional racism which we apply consists of the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in the processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice. Without recognition, and action to eliminate such racism, it can prevail as part of the ethos or culture of the organisation. It is a corrosive disease. To discuss diversity and improving diversity, particularly as it concerns race, there needs to be proper and honest discussion about racism. We as a profession have to move beyond seeing racism as individual characteristics. We need to understand racism as a system, not an event. There is a lot of guilt and ‘head placed in sand’ over the fact that the white majority ethnic group in our society have a distinct advantage over minority groups because of concepts such as privilege bias and, at times, blatant and unwarranted discrimination. Recently, I wrote in Counsel magazine: “It’s a flawed and outdated view of racism to believe that the racist is an individual who consciously does not like people based on race and is intentionally mean to them. Such definition is a reflection which protects the system. When our profession recognises that racism doesn’t necessarily come from individuals, doesn’t need to be conscious, doesn’t need to be intentional, we will be moving in the right direction. Racial injustice and racism isn’t a simple binary question, the racist needn’t simply be bad, ignorant, bigoted, prejudiced or old. The non-racist isn’t necessarily the good person, educated, progressive, open or fair-minded, wellintended, or young. This discussion goes well beyond this.”
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It’s a flawed and outdated view of racism to believe that the racist is an individual who consciously does not like people based on race and is intentionally mean to them. Such definition is a reflection which protects the system. When our profession recognises that racism doesn’t necessarily come from individuals, doesn’t need to be conscious, doesn’t need to be intentional, we will be moving in the right direction.
So, what is white privilege?
If you recognise that systems and structures were designed to disadvantage marginalised groups, the expectation should then be that those in the dominant group use their access privilege as an opportunity to make way for those that the same access privilege and opportunity has been denied. Acknowledgement and acceptance of the truth, no matter how uncomfortable. As Peggy McIntosh points out in her book, On Privilege, Fraudulence, and Teaching as Learning: “ I think whites are carefully taught not to recognise white privilege, as males are taught not to recognise male privilege.” Turning to the anti-racist approach – what does it mean to be anti-racist? Ibram X Kendi says: “ Racist: one who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inaction or expressing a racist idea.
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“The reality that a white person’s whiteness has come – and continues to come – with an array of benefits and advantages not shared by many people of colour. It doesn’t mean that I, as a white person, don’t work hard (I do) or that I haven’t suffered (well, I have known struggle), but simply that I have received help, often unacknowledged assistance, because I am white” (John Greenberg). So where do we go? And what should we do? New Zealand lawyer and mediator Paul Sills provides some answers. He argues that diversity is important because it is beneficial to have individuals of various talents within the group, company or social setting. Sills concludes that people who have grown up in multicultural societies often find it not only normal but desirable to live with people of different backgrounds. Diversity is not merely tolerated but something to be actively sought out. Sills’ arguments are powerful and persuasive, and we all have to embrace these arguments. It is the job of this profession to acknowledge and present these arguments persuasively and convincingly in an anti-racist way. Let me say something about indifference, as I come to the end of this talk. “Neither love nor terror makes one blind. Indifference makes one blind.” That is what James Baldwin wrote. We can all achieve equity and equality among people. It is not going to be easy, but, as Baldwin wrote: “Those who say it cannot be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.” Professor Leslie Thomas QC Garden Court Chambers Professor of Law, Gresham College For the full video recording of this lecture: innertemple.org.uk/lectures
nti-racist: One who is supporting an anti-racist policy A through their actions or expressing an anti-racist idea.” The anti-racist is not afraid to discuss this as an issue, but he will be met with the following charges: “Why do you need to keep on talking about it?” Racism is like a cancer: you cannot ignore it, it needs attention if it is to be treated, and sometimes it just needs to be cut out. The anti-racist, particularly if she is a person of colour, will be told, “Stop playing the race card.” This is saying, if you are an ethnic minority and things do not go your way, then it is the easy excuse for whatever shortcomings you are trying to hide. Or we might be met with, “You have a chip on your shoulder!” What exactly does this mean? People have a racial chip on their shoulder, have the wrong outlook, and people like that will never get anywhere in life with an attitude like that. Why should we be accused of this because we draw attention to and highlight obvious inequalities and unfairness that affects an entire race of people. It turns the problem back on the person. You see, the privileges of whiteness are often taken for granted, and not understood by those upon whom it is bestowed. You see, you can make it to the top of your profession, and yet still be harassed because of the colour of your skin.
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The History Society Review
THE HISTORY SOCIETY REVIEW By the Archivist
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The History Society has thrived in the time of COVID-19. Thanks to technology and the rise of online events, it has adapted perfectly to the ‘new normal’ and attracted a large global audience to its webinars, which were broadcast this year. Online events have also allowed the Inn to invite lecturers from as far afield as the US. The History Society was delighted to welcome Professor Tidmarsh of Notre Dame Law School to its first online History Society event, which was also the inaugural joint Inns of Court Selden Society Lecture, an annual event which will alternate between the four Inns of Court. The Fire Courts: Successfully Delivering Justice in a Time of Plague and Fire lecture examined the role of the ‘fire courts,’ which parliament established to resolve disputes between landlords and tenants in urban areas destroyed in catastrophic fires. The Inner Temple was almost completely destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, which took place in September during the summer vacation when many of its residents were absent. The Great Fire of London destroyed a total of 426 acres of London, a vast number of houses – only four were left standing on Fleet Street – and tens of thousands of people were made homeless. Eight of the 22 fire court judges were members of the Inner Temple and they sat in the hall of the Inner Temple’s Clifford’s Inn to hear the huge quantity of disputes. During its first year, the fire court was in session for 120 days, hearing 374 disputes, inspired by the decree to “promote the rebuilding of the city”. One of the fire courts’ most remarkable features was the delegation of authority to judges to adjudicate disputes without juries. The lecture explored the social and economic impact of the Great Fire and explained how a six-section Act of Parliament erected a novel fire court to cut a path through the tsunami of legal disputes that threatened the rebuilding of London, and played a central role in the City’s redevelopment. The lecture explored lessons for modern times and the circumstances under which government intervention can foster resilience, in particular the ways in which the judiciary can be a key partner in recovery from disaster. The global audience for this lecture included legal scholars, the public, and members of the Bar. 88
The second lecture was wonderfully organised by our former Treasurer Master Donald Cryan on the topic of Law in a Time of Plague: Is the Law a Good Doctor?, with Professor Sir John Baker QC (Emeritus Downing Professor Emeritus of the Laws of England 1998–2011 and Inner Temple Bencher) and Professor John Wass (Professor of Endocrinology, University of Oxford, and Inner Temple Bencher) in conversation with His Honour Donald Cryan (former Treasurer of the Inner Temple). The lecture examined the nature of the plagues that have beset this country both from a medical point of view, as brilliantly evoked by Master John Wass, and the law’s response to the plague, as explained by Master John Baker. One felt grateful that one was not alive in the 16th century when some local authorities took stringent measures to ensure that plague victims did not infect others, in some cases even ordering offenders to be shot. In 1518, plague-ridden Londoners were required to put a bundle of straw on a ten-foot pole outside a house, which was altered in 1547 to the now familiar cross, and anyone leaving such a house was to carry a four-footlong white wand. In the 1550s, pesthouses were set up on the outskirts of towns to quarantine infected people and, in 1578, houses infected by plague were to be closed for six weeks. The wealthier members of the population as largely represented here and at other institutions, such as Oxford and Cambridge, were able to retire to safe country retreats, and it was the poor who bore the brunt of this most stringent legislation.
The lecture examined the nature of the plagues that have beset this country both from a medical point of view, as brilliantly evoked by Master John Wass, and the law’s response to the plague, as explained by Master John Baker.
Archives
It was striking to note the parallels between then and now. Comparisons can be made between anti-vaxxers today and the puritans who felt no measures should be taken to protect sinners from the plague, since it was clearly God’s judgment and way of punishing the sinners, a natural course of events which should be left to do its worst.
In effect, London’s gilds did the same jobs that other locally constituted bodies would do in later times with more formally constituted assemblies and officials. They provided a way to enact government and law enforcement from the bottom up. Community justice was meted out to thieves or those who transgressed, and the rules of the gilds strictly enforced. As the History Society’s Chairman pointed out, it was vigilante justice without the decorum of our courts today – a dinner party where you hear court cases. The History Society was delighted to once again make this lecture available to a wide international audience.
An audience of over 300 tuned in to enjoy this lecture and, as our Treasurer summed up, “The only defence of human is their wits,” and it was comforting to realise that we have more wits and knowledge to defend us in our current virus-filled days. The History Society was honoured to welcome Dr Rory Naismith on 5 May, who provided a fascinating insight into the extraordinary social, economic and legal functions of the early medieval peace gilds of London in his lecture Gilds and Things: Keeping the Peace in 10th-entury London. Dr Naismith described the London of the 10th century as an entirely functional place, a shanty town of wooden houses existing primarily as a trading post or, as he put it, “permanent car boot sale”, in which no professional legal class yet existed and certainly no Inns of Court. A place in which the punishment of criminals, particularly thieves, was meted out by groups known as peace gilds in the absence of powerful leadership or an efficient justice system, thereby maintaining social structure and public order through community justice. Their membership encompassed almost every level of society beneath the elite and, in many ways, were akin to a family, inclusive of laity and clergy, men and women alike, with prayer and other shared religious devotions taking place alongside eating, drinking and mutual support against misfortune, injustice or feud. Dr Naismith was quick to point out that they were very different to their later counterparts, named guilds, which were linked to trade or devotional groups and were a pillar of medieval social and economic life in London – a prerequisite for citizenship.
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
In effect, London’s gilds did the same jobs that other locally constituted bodies would do in later times with more formally constituted assemblies and officials. They provided a way to enact government and law enforcement from the bottom up. Community justice was meted out to thieves or those who transgressed, and the rules of the gilds strictly enforced. The History Society plans to go from strength to strength next year, continuing with its online broadcasts of live events, which will now take place in our new education and training lecture rooms. Professor Michelle O’Callaghan, who a few years ago provided us with a wonderful lecture on the 16th- and 17th-century revels at the Inns of Court, will commence our revival on 15 February 2022 to discuss the subject of her latest research, which concerns the circulation of books at the Inns with a particular focus on the library of William Crashawe, the preacher at the Middle and Inner Temples in the early 17th century. Professor Mitra Sharafi of the University of Wisconsin will share her research on her first book, Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia: Parsi Legal Culture 1772–1947, and examine the influence of the Inns of Court on the development of commonwealth justice systems (date to be confirmed). Dr Frances Burton, Vice-President and committee member of the Association of Women Barristers in England and Wales, will discuss the history of women lawyers on the May anniversary of the Call of the first woman to the Bar. We hope that you will be able to join us. Celia Pilkington Archivist
Above: The Great Plague of London in 1665. The last major outbreak of the bubonic plague in England. Opposite: Plan of London before the fire.
Covid-19 Vaccine © Artem Podrez / Pexels
© Unknown / Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677) Public Domain
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Should UK Judges and Ex-Judges Be Sitting in Hong Kong?
SOCIAL CONTEXT OF THE LAW:
SHOULD UK JUDGES AND EX-JUDGES BE SITTING IN HONG KONG? From a panel discussion between The Rt Hon Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury and Master Charles Falconer, moderated by Master Treasurer and delivered via Webinar on Thursday 6 May 2021
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Master Treasurer: Should UK judges and ex-judges be sitting in Hong Kong? Let me start with a very quick pen sketch to set the scene. On 8 September 1997, the then Lord Chancellor, Master Irvine, and the Chief Justice of Hong Kong agreed that the House of Lords would provide two serving Law Lords to sit on the newly created Court of Final Appeal as part of the UK’s continuing commitment to safeguarding the rule of law in Hong Kong. And we move forward 20 years. Lord Neuberger, then the President of the United Kingdom Supreme Court and a sitting judge on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, was reported as saying the time could come when it would be right for all foreign judges to quit the Hong Kong bench. Giving a speech in 2017, he suggested that the foreign judges were “canaries in the mine”. As long as they are happy to serve on the court, then you can safely assume that all is well with judicial independence and impartiality in Hong Kong. But if they start to leave in droves, that would represent a serious alarm call.
The foreign judges were “canaries in the mine”. As long as they are happy to serve on the court, then you can safely assume that all is well with judicial independence and impartiality in Hong Kong. But if they start to leave in droves, that would represent a serious alarm call.
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On to 30 June 2020. The law of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on safeguarding national security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was enacted, introducing crimes of subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign powers. This is said to be a breach of Article 23 of the Basic Law, which provides for Hong Kong to bring forward its own national security legislation, which had been tried, but failed, in 2003. Foreign judges are not permitted to hear cases arising under the new law. Master Reid, the president of the UK Supreme Court, said, “[The new law] contains a number of provisions which give rise to concerns. Its effect will depend upon how it is applied in practice. Undoubtedly the judges of the Court of Final Appeal will do their utmost to uphold the guarantee in the Basic Law that the courts of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Regions shall exercise judicial power independently, free from any interference.” The Supreme Court, continued Lord Reid, supports the judges of Hong Kong in their commitment to safeguard judicial independence and the rule of law. It will continue to assess the position in Hong Kong as it develops in discussion with the UK government. Whether judges of the Supreme Court can continue to serve as judges in Hong Kong will depend on whether such service remains compatible with judicial independence and the rule of law. On to this year: on 11 March 2021, Lisa Nandy, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, and one of tonight’s speakers, Lord Falconer, the Shadow Attorney General, called for the UK judges to withdraw, in recognition that the rule of law was endangered by Beijing’s crackdown on democracy. They said that “while it had been hoped that the continuing role of UK judges could help preserve judicial independence and the rule of law in the face of the actions of the Chinese government and Hong Kong authorities, the sustained campaign to undermine democracy has fundamentally changed the context”.
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Let me give you two opposing viewpoints on tonight’s topic: the first from Nathan Law, a leading democracy campaigner, who left for London because of the new law and was granted political asylum here in April 2021. He has called for the judges to quit. He said that the territory’s legal system has been “fundamentally undermined by the Chinese government’s steady suffocation of Hong Kong’s autonomy”. By serving in Hong Kong, British judges are therefore giving a veneer of credibility to a system which is now utterly lacking in legitimacy.
I feel, although I think it is a very difficult decision, that it is wrong for the President of the UK Supreme Court, and the Deputy President of the Supreme Court, the two senior officeholders in the UK judicial system, to continue to sit in the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong.
And against that, Lord Pannick, who often appears in Hong Kong courts, argues that the British judges should remain. He said the Hong Kong judiciary is doing all it can to maintain its independence. They want to be supported by lawyers and judges in this country, not abandoned. And finally, a word from a man on the spot, Paul Harris, the chair of the Hong Kong Bar Association. He said: “The worst possible thing that could happen to us practising here in Hong Kong is if those overseas judges leave. I’m aware of the voices that are being raised in the United Kingdom, saying the judges should be withdrawn. I cannot emphasise too strongly how much I disagree with that, and how utterly damaging that would be.” And so, ladies and gentlemen, on to tonight’s speakers. First, Master Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton and Privy Counsellor. Charlie was called to the Bar in 1974, took silk in 1991, was created a life peer by the Prime Minister in 1997, and joined the government as Solicitor General. After a series of other government posts, he joined the Cabinet in 2003, becoming Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. He is currently the Shadow Attorney General. David Neuberger, Baron Neuberger of Abbotsbury, holder of the Gold Bauhinia Star, Privy Counsellor, honorary fellow of the Royal Society, was also called to the Bar in 1974, took silk in 1987, became a High Court judge in 1996, Lord Justice of Appeal in 2004, and Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 2007. Lord Neuberger was the youngest sitting Law Lord, but he didn’t stop there. He became Master of the Rolls in 2009, President of the Supreme Court in 2012 and non-permanent judge (NPJ) at the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal in 2010. He was more or less forced to retire in 2017 from judging but is now very active as an arbitrator, and in many other roles, including his continuing membership of the Court of Final Appeal. Please, can I call on you, Charlie, to start us off this evening? Lord Falconer: I feel, although I think it is a very difficult decision, that it is wrong for the President of the UK Supreme Court, and the Deputy President of the Supreme Court, the two senior officeholders in the UK judicial system, to continue to sit in the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong. I think people such as David are in a different position: they no longer hold state judicial office, and it’s for them to make up their mind in relation to it.
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
But I think it is wholly wrong for the UK state to give the appearance of endorsement to what is going on in Hong Kong and, in particular, the position of the rule of law. I have absolutely no quarrel with a number of the propositions that were advanced by both David Pannick and Paul Harris. Now, unquestionably, you would find the judges there doing their best and succeeding in deciding cases in an independent way and in accordance with the law. If you went and spoke to the legal profession in Hong Kong, they are incredibly keen that the foreign judges continue to operate there. And the reason they are keen for it is because of the huge contributions that the foreign judges have made in relation to the development of jurisprudence in Hong Kong, and in providing solidarity to Hong Kong judges, who from time to time, like all judges, come under pressure from circumstance. But the reason it is wrong for the present judges to continue to sit is because there is this gaping hole in the rule of law in Hong Kong, and that gaping hole is not explicit pressure on the judges; it is the obvious inimical approach that the Chinese government has started to take to the law. The National Security Law is absolutely the clearest and most glaring example of it. You have to take the National Security Law in full: it creates a number of offences, offences that we would regard as being pretty restrictive of people’s freedom of expression and freedom of protest. Those will be dealt with by the courts, and the courts will probably be compelled, as they have been in the last few months, to give effect to these draconian laws that would never be acceptable here. But more significant for the oppressive nature of the new criminal offences is Article 55, which allows something set up by the National Security Law called the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative regions – a government body, a body of the Chinese government. It allows them to exercise jurisdiction over a case concerning endangering national security. If the Office for Safeguarding National Security takes the view that “a serious situation occurs where the government of the region is unable to [effectively] enforce this law”, then they can determine what’s to be investigated. They can determine where it’s tried.
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Should UK Judges and Ex-Judges Be Sitting in Hong Kong?
In effect, what’s happening is that the PRC has taken to itself the power to get ‘round the judges in Hong Kong. So if, even under this draconian law, convictions are not obtained, or investigations are not pursued, then the PRC can, in effect, choose who to investigate, choose how they’re tried, choose where they’re tried and choose what happens to them. You cannot have a system which purports to be the rule of law where there is a parallel system where the executive can do what it likes in relation to those who are its enemies.
Master Treasurer: So, David, it looks as if the heat is off you. Charlie is really getting at our two Supreme Court justices. That’s where he’s directing the focus of his argument and now what do you say?
In effect, what’s happening is that the PRC has taken to itself the power to get ‘round the judges in Hong Kong. So if, even under this draconian law, convictions are not obtained, or investigations are not pursued, then the PRC can, in effect, choose who to investigate, choose how they’re tried, choose where they’re tried and choose what happens to them.
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This has also to be seen in the context of the way that the Chinese government have treated lawyers in England who have had the temerity to express views – entirely in accordance with the law in the UK – unfavourable to the Chinese government. They sanctioned a number of sets of solicitors and a set of chambers, because on the chambers’ website was an article by one of the members of chambers expressing critical views of the Chinese government’s record towards human rights. Sanctioning lawyers for doing that shows utter contempt for the law. Plainly, I think David is right in his speech in 2017. And he put it incredibly well because what he said there was the critical reason for the apex judges being there. Of course, it’s hugely beneficial to Hong Kong to have judges of quality there. But much more important than the quality – because there are a lot of brave judges of huge quality within Hong Kong itself – is the “canaries in the mine” thing. Staying, and the British government saying that the apex judges can stay, is saying, the rule of law is fine. It most certainly is not fine, because there is this massive hole. And that is why I side – unfortunately for me, not with the legal community, not with the legal establishment in Hong Kong – with Nathan Law and what he said, which is that you should not be doing this. I make it clear that for David, it’s a choice for him as an individual. For me, a big thing is the two apex judges, and they should not be lending their authority to what’s going on in Hong Kong.
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Lord Neuberger: I’d like to divide what I’ve got to say into three parts. First of all, the arguments as to why UK judges, ex-judges, shouldn’t be sitting in Hong Kong. Secondly, reasons why they should. And thirdly, the position of the Supreme Court Justices. In Charlie and Lisa Nandy’s statement, the first observation concerned democracy. Democracy and the rule of law are quite independent of each other. Hong Kong under British rule provides a very good example. There was no democracy of any sort during our 155-year rule, save for a very pallid sort of democracy in the last year or two before we handed over to the PRC. There’s no doubt that Hong Kong had the rule of law since 1945. So, while there may have been a curtailment of democracy in Hong Kong, it doesn’t impinge on the rule of law. Charlie has concentrated more on the substantive law. One has to be careful about that. No judge approves of every law which he or she has to apply. The fact that capital punishment existed in most Caribbean countries stopped me acting as a judge in the Privy Council on Caribbean capital cases. Of course, the law can become so bad in one’s view that one steps down. But there’s no reason to do that in Hong Kong at the moment.
No judge approves of every law which he or she has to apply. The fact that capital punishment existed in most Caribbean countries stopped me acting as a judge in the Privy Council on Caribbean capital cases. What about the National Security Law? The Basic Law was approved years before the UK agreed that UK judges would be sitting in Hong Kong, and was part of the settlement, effectively, when Hong Kong started under PRC rule. Article 23 of the Basic Law provided that the Legislative Council of Hong Kong would enact a National Security Law. Although it was part of the settlement, even after 20 years, the Hong Kong legislative council failed to comply with it. So, it’s scarcely surprising that the PRC stepped in and passed it – especially after the violent demonstrations, the invasion of the Legislative Council, and the disruption to communications which was occurring. And, before we leap into action, we should wait and see what the Hong Kong authorities and the Hong Kong Courts actually do with this law. All countries, including the UK, have laws which protect national security. And those laws almost always include provisions which appear draconian at least to some people, and which can be misused or abused. But let’s wait and see if they are misused or abused.
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Charlie concentrated in particular on the ability of the PRC effectively to bypass the Hong Kong judiciary on national security cases under Article 55 of the Security Law. Well, it can only do so in three types of circumstance. First, where the case is complex due to the involvement of a foreign country or external elements, which makes it difficult for a region of China – which is what Hong Kong is – to exercise jurisdiction. Secondly, where the government of Hong Kong is incapable of enforcing the law. And thirdly, where there is a major and imminent threat to national security. In those circumstances, what is effectively being said is that it must be handed over to the federal government, if you like, to the Chinese government.
Solicitors, barristers, business leaders – all have publicly said that they’re very keen to keep the overseas NPJs. They’re all groups of people who are dependent on the rule of law, who are supportive of the rule of law, and who know about the rule of law and circumstances in Hong Kong. And the Hong Kong judges are valued and respected colleagues whom we should be supporting as long as we can.
Indeed, there has always been what I might call a ‘Beijing override’ in Hong Kong law. Article 158 of the Basic Law provides that the “National People’s Congress Standing Committee” can overrule the Court of Final Appeal. And the UK agreed to it, and it was the law when we agreed to UK judges sitting there. And we agreed to that, eight years after Tiananmen Square.
And, before we leap into action, we should wait and see what the Hong Kong authorities and the Hong Kong Courts actually do with this law. All countries, including the UK, have laws which protect national security. And those laws almost always include provisions which appear draconian at least to some people, and which can be misused or abused. But let’s wait and see if they are misused or abused. What about the positive arguments in favour of staying as a Hong Kong judge? First of all, support for the rule of law in Hong Kong. The NPJs undoubtedly help to maintain the rule of law; they provide internal support for, and reinforce the credibility of, the Hong Kong judiciary. Support for the rule of law is vital for maintaining the Hong Kong constitution, in which the UK played such a part in setting up. It’s vital for the protecting the Basic Law – which sets out the rights of individuals in Hong Kong. And it’s vital for the extraordinary economic success of Hong Kong.
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
As for the argument that, by remaining, the NPJs are giving an unjustified impression of respectability to the Hong Kong judiciary: we’re only going to stay so long as the Hong Kong judiciary is truly independent. If we want to antagonise the PRC to the positive disadvantage of this country and of Hong Kong, and in a way that achieves nothing, then we should stand down. Finally, I turn to the position of serving Supreme Court Justices. I accept that they are potentially in a different position. Unlike retired UK judges, they have a primary and overriding duty to the UK Supreme Court, and they are servants of the Crown. Nonetheless, subject to that, the arguments I’ve rehearsed apply with equal force to them. It is not for me to tell UK Supreme Court judges what they should do, but the mere fact that some politicians and some journalists say that they should not be sitting in Hong Kong is not a good reason for them standing down. While judges should not ignore publicly expressed opinions, it’s part of their job to make right and unpopular decisions. Master Treasurer: Ladies and gentlemen, you have been favoured with a marvellous and very generous demonstration by two legal titans. We’re enormously grateful to you both, David and Charlie; it was very good of you to give up your time to come along and address a topic which is so topical. And we’ve been much entertained and edified by what you’ve said. Thank you so much. My thanks also to Kate Peters, Rosie Humphrey and Henrietta Amodio for creating this evening and putting it together. Guy Fetherstonhaugh QC Master Treasurer
The Rt Hon Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury The Rt Hon The Lord Falconer of Thoroton For the full video recording of this discussion, including much further debate and responses to questions from the audience: innertemple.org.uk/hkjudges
It would require a very clear case before UK judges should walk away from that, particularly UK judges. The UK was responsible for Hong Kong for over 150 years. But much more importantly, we have a substantial responsibility for the Basic Law. It seems to me extraordinary that at the first sound of gunfire, we should walk away. Our duty is surely to stay as long as we can to stand up for the values enshrined in the Basic Law, which is still very much alive and effective.
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Timeline
TIMELINE 1521 “A serjeant of the law, ware and wise, That often hadde ben at the parvis, Ther was also, full rich of excellence. Discreet he was and of great reverence, He sened swiche; his wordes were so wise, Justice he was ful often in assise, By patent, and by pleine commissiun; For his science, and for his high renoun, Of fees and robes had he many on.” Geoffrey Chaucer, General Prologue – The Canterbury Tales Since the last serjeant-at-law died in 1921, many have forgotten this extraordinary elite group of lawyers who once presided over the English courts, holding precedence over all other lawyers.
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A writ from the King was required to create a serjeant. The writ was issued under the Great Seal. And the Inns of Court celebrated these prestigious occasions with lavish ceremony, with the serjeants assembling in one of the Inns of Court for a celebratory feast at which either the Lord Chancellor or Lord Chief Justice would give a speech and a purse of gold to the newly created serjeants. As a mark of their station, they were required to wear a closely fitting white coif, which would be placed on the serjeant’s head at the ceremony. Their exceptional status can be demonstrated by their rarity. In total, only 89 serjeants were created throughout the 16th century. In 1521, the Inner Temple was honoured to have four of its members elected to this prestigious rank. The ceremony to celebrate the occasion was lavish and is described in the proceedings of our parliament: “As stated at a Parliament on the 7 July 13 Henry VIII 1521 “Whereas the King lately directed four writs to four members of the society namely, William Ruhale, John Poorte, Baldwin Malett and William Shelley that they in the octaves of St John should receive the estate and rank of serjeants at law, which same William Rudhale, John Poorte and William Shelley on Friday 28 June after vespers bade farewell to the society in the manner following. “First, all of the society who were in the city being warned and being assembled in the hall, the seniors in the upper part and juniors in the lower, two elder barristers were sent for the eldest serjeant, to show him that the members would expect his coming and to accompany him into the hall; and so another two for another serjeant;
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1621 and so for each of them. Which being done and being come and standing in the chief place of the society almost in the middle of the hall on one side according to their seniority, the serjeant being the eldest member began to deliver to the society a goodly exhortation, to observe the ordinances and rules there before used, as well concerning study as other things, admonishing the younger members to obey their superiors, showing that by so doing he come to the rank of Serjeant declaring to the society his good will and offering them his service as well with his heart, his mouth and by his deeds. And having said these words the second serjeant began his exhortation, and so the third. Which being said the member who was first in seniority and dignity returned thanks to them in the name of the whole society for their good exhortations and for their teachings now past, beseeching them that although they might be absent in body, nevertheless they would not be so in spirt and will, and assuring them with humility of the services of the society which being said those three serjeants proceeded to the door of the buttery where the treasurer delivered to them in the name of the society 10li, in three pairs of gloves provided for the purpose, namely to each of them 5 marks. And if there had been fourth ey would not have had more, and if only two they would not have had any less. And Baldwin Malet after the delivery of the writ, by the special endeavours of his friends was discharged before the rest were sworn, to wit, in Hilary term last. “That those Serjeants proceeded to the House of the Bishop of Ely, in Holborne, the Society following, from the seniors to the juniors to the number of almost a hundred and sixty, and so they came to a certain parlour on the north side of the hall where the rest of the serjeants of the other Inns had assembled, namely, from the Middle Temple, Fitzjames, Brown and Yngrefeld from ‘Lyncoln Yn’ Wylloghby and Norwyche, and from ‘Grey’s Yn’ Fayrfax and Spylman. And after all the Serjeants had come into the hall there and set at the chief table and the elders of the Inn with them, they had spices and many comfits with wine of every sort. And on Saturday they remained there and on Sunday the Chief Justice gave them a goodly exhortion in the great chamber at the end of the hall and then he told them their pleas (narrations) before delivered by the chief notaries. Memo: Rudhall at hys departure lafte a silvour spone for the borde of the benchers for a rembraunze in custodia of the cheif butler.”
Christmas at the Inns of Court and Chancery were celebrated in elaborate and ostentatious style from All Saints’ Eve (31 October) to Candlemas Day (2 February). Alongside the usual religious observances, they included the performance of student-run and written plays, masques, dancing, singing and lavish banquets. The custom of blowing a horn to summon people to dinner was first mentioned in the Inns Acts of parliament, with orders for the horn to “blow for dinner before 11 o’clock and before 6 for supper”. Behaviour during this period was a cause of concern amongst the Benchers of the Inn and, throughout the century, attempts were made to control the “licentiousness and disorder” that tended to prevail at this time, and it was the butlers in the frontline that took the brunt of the drunkenness.
Attempts were made to control the “licentiousness and disorder” that tended to prevail at this time, and it was the butlers in the frontline that took the brunt of the drunkenness. In 1622, there were complaints as to the remissness of the butlers. Interviews with the poor beleaguered butlers revealed that they were being forced to personally serve members in their chambers under the threat of being placed out of commons and losing their jobs, and so dared not inform the Benchers of the barristers’ disorders. Swift action was taken with the order that “if any fellow shall hereafter threaten a butler that he shall be called to the Bench Table and put out of commons or otherwise punished as the cause shall require…and that the butler that shall be so threatened put out of commons or ill used shall be punished if he do not inform the bench thereof”.
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Parliament, 12 February 1722
Marks the birth of one of our famous members, Thomas Hughes (1822–1896), lawyer, judge, politician and author. Called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1848 and now most famous for his novel Tom Brown’s School Days. As a committed social reformer, he also joined the Christian socialism movement in 1848.
Death of Nicholas Courtney (c1632–1722), Treasurer, 1694 “Copy of a petition in an unknown hand praying for Psalms to be sung in the Temple Church on weekdays as is the daily practice in most other churches in London. “Roast beef days for the year. November 5 to be gold bowl day. “Mr Courtney’s age when he died, October 26, shewn to be 92 from a paper of his written January 9 1701–02 in he says he is ‘above 3 score and 12 years old’. In a petition of the date he writes: “Mr Courtney of the Temple of true cavalier suffering family once steady to the Crown, was under the displeasure of the last reign consigned to surrender a small office of Attorney General to the Duchy of Cornwall to prevent the same being taken from him. “He attended four of his brothers and as many uncles whereof two were General Officers and third commanded the posse comiatus 59 years since. “Prays your Lordship before he leaves the stage (being above 3 score and 12 years old that his long and steady service to the Crown and Government may be honoured in such preferment as your Lordship shall think fit). “How many of the favourites of the last that have not confidence enough to continue in this.” Com of the Alienation Office Curstitor Baron Welch judges
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1922
“Whereas at a Bench Table holden on the seventh day of November 1922 the Treasurer having reported that he had received a certified copy of the conviction and sentence to six years’ imprisonment of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi a Barrister of this Inn at the Court of the Sessions Judge, Ahmedabad, India on the 18th of March 1922 for sedition. It was ordered – That The movement espoused the principles Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi having of socialism and equality that informed been convicted by a competent Tribunal his working life. He was instrumental in of an offence which in the opinion of the the founding of the first Working Men’s Bench disqualifies him from continuing a College in Great Ormond Street along Member of the Inn should have his name with fellow Inner Templar Frederick removed from the books. And at the same Denison Maurice, with the support of Bench Table. It was further ordered – That other members of this movement such at the Parliament to be holden on Friday as Charles Kingsley, John Ruskin, Dante the 10th day of November 1922 the said Gabriel Rossetti and John Stuart Mill. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi be He was Principal of the College from disbarred and his name removed from 1872 to 1883. As a Liberal MP for Lambeth the books of this society and that this and later Frome from 1865 to 1874, he Order be communicated to the judges tirelessly supported the working man of the Supreme Court of Judicature to and was instrumental in the formation of the other Inns of Court to the General some early trade unions and cooperatives. Council of the Bar and by registered In 1880, disillusioned by the materialism letter to the said Mohandas Karamchand of late Victorian society, he attempted Gandhi and be screened in the Hall. to set up an experimental utopia in “It is at this Parliament ordered – That the the US populated by the younger sons said Order be and the same is hereby of the English gentry, whose talents confirmed and the said Mohandas he believed were wasted through the Karamchand Gandhi is hereby practice of primogeniture. The colony disbarred and his name removed aimed to espouse the ideals of from the books of this society.” Christian socialism through equality and cooperation, with the cooperative Walter G Wrangham ownership of the community businesses. Sub-Treasurer The experiment failed due to a disastrous typhoid epidemic shortly after its foundation in 1881. The community was beset with lawsuits and land disputes, and its population of younger sons were not accustomed to the hard-manual labour necessary to cultivate the crops, and by 1887, most of the remaining original settlers had given up and gone home.
Gandhi was posthumously readmitted with the unanimous support of our Benchers in 1986 under the treasureship of Master Evelyn Monier-Williams. On this centenary of his disbarment, we celebrate the life and work of one of our most distinguished members.
Thomas Hughes was elected a Bencher of this Inn in 1870.
Above, left-to-right: 1521, Last Serjeant-at-Law, The Right Honourable The Lord Lindley; 1621, Christmas Revels at Haddon Hall; 1722 An engraving of The Temple from that year; 1822 Portrait of Thomas Hughes; 1922 Studio photograph of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, London
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The Temple Church: Transforming with the Times
THE TEMPLE CHURCH:
TRANSFORMING WITH THE TIMES By The Master of the Temple
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Outside altar Colonna votiva piazza Roma © Comune di Brugherio digital archives
Portrait of Charles Borromeo © Attributed to Giovanni Ambrogio Figino. Public Domain
In July 1576, the plague struck Milan. It would be a terrible outbreak. The civic authorities fled. Authority devolved upon Archbishop Carlo Borromeo, already a hero of the Catholic Reformation and Milan’s most powerful figure. His first move, consonant with the practice of centuries past, was to mount vast penitential processions through the city. He led them himself, barefoot. After three of these, however, the doctors urged him to stop; however prayerful the penitents, such crowds were the surest way to spread the disease. The Archbishop had already divided each procession into parishbased bubbles, to prevent contagion. But he now promptly followed the science; he put the whole city into lockdown. Even 16th-century Milan had its SAGE.
Borromeo would have been the first to live-stream services and Zoom his congregations. It has been something of an inspiration, over the last 18 months, to know that we have in our way been doing what he did in his. The Church at large has been here before.
Next, the Archbishop invoked the calling and courage of his clergy, even of the most enclosed monks. They must be out in the city, providing for those who needed help, but always keeping, as best they could, at a safe distance. The laity clearly could not attend Mass; so, Borromeo had altars set up at squares and crossroads at which priests could celebrate Mass and the laity could watch from their homes. Then came pamphlets, for universal distribution, on which were printed simple musical litanies. At set hours, all the churches would ring their bells, and citizens would fling open their doors and windows and sing the litanies antiphonally across the city’s streets. Even in these months of horror, we are told, Milan seemed to resound with the music of the heavenly Jerusalem. Borromeo was of course promoting the prayers that would surely help end the plague; he himself admitted, as well, that he suspected Milan’s citizens simply did not have enough to do. 96
We have been grateful for other inspiration too: loyal congregations at our weekly Zoom evensongs; a welcome surge of attendance online and then in person as the choir gradually regained its freedom to sing here, live; an astonishing resilience in our musicians and the choristers, as the boys had over and again to rehearse and perform online; and the support of both Inns and of the Temple Music Foundation for a vastly enhanced streaming system that will from now on be in use at every service and, we hope, at Call Nights, concerts, lectures and discussions. Imagine training young children, who learn everything from listening to those around them and from the shared energy of their enterprise, to sing in a choir which has hardly met in person for a year. Roger Sayer and his team have worked wonders. At the start of the legal year, we sang an evensong at which Master Buckland, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, gave the address (live!) and Bar leaders in the USA, Continental Europe, Africa and Hong Kong read the intercessions. Towards its end, an Australian bride celebrated her wedding here with 15 guests in church and 95 – including her grandparents – in Sydney, champagne in hand. And in between, we were able to issue genuine
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
© Szilvia Booker
invitations to the Inns’ members in Ireland, Scotland and Wales to join us online for our celebrations of Saints Patrick, Andrew and David; to our American friends for our services for Independence Day and Thanksgiving; and so on. Our long-standing hope to serve constituencies based way beyond the Temple itself can at last be realized. Our North American friends are en route to becoming our Friends. Three senior members of the American Bar Association have established the American Friends of the Temple Church; the two Inns have warmly embraced the initiative, quite rightly extending the welcome to Canadian lawyers too. The plan is threefold: to strengthen personal and institutional links across the Atlantic; to discuss sociolegal concerns that we all share; and to introduce more North American judges and attorneys to this lovely church, our history, our roles and our major capital project of Restoration & Renewal. Master HRH The Princess Royal has graciously become our Friends’ Royal Patron, the Bishop of London and Dean of the Chapels Royal, our Ecclesiastical Patron.
The plan is threefold: to strengthen personal and institutional links across the Atlantic; to discuss socio-legal concerns that we all share; and to introduce more North American judges and attorneys to this lovely church, our history, our roles and our major capital project of Restoration & Renewal.
Our work on Restoration & Renewal itself has carried on, online. We are readying the recommendations we will submit to the Inns for the project and the elements within it that will call for the most careful decisions; we are seeking funds to take us through that internal decision process to our application for planning permission; and we now have to hand the business plan commissioned to cast as much light as we can in these uncertain times on the coming years within the Temple and in the whole area of Fleet Street. We look forward to the autumn: to the gradual return of members to chambers and the Temple; to weddings that have been postponed for months; and to memorial services that have, in some cases, been postponed for over a year. We were given some hint of the restored normality for which, perhaps, we can all now hope, on the last Sunday in July and of the legal year. The Bishop of London was back in person to preside and celebrate the Service of Confirmation and Communion. Almost everyone wore a mask; we kept ample space free for those who wished to maintain social distancing; we all received the bread only at communion, not the wine; and yet we were able to gather again at last, friends divided for months, and to emulate as best we could, in the choir’s singing and our own, the music of the heavenly Jerusalem. And adjutant to the Bishop, from beginning to end, was the newly elected Master Hatcher, Honorary Bencher of The Inner Temple, Reader of the Temple. It was a joy. The Rev Robin Griffith-Jones Master of the Temple
Patricia Lee Refo, President of the ABA, helped to lead the intercessions at our evensong for the Opening of the Legal Year 2020. She emailed later, “As I watched the Opening Service, my tears came almost immediately. They were tears of joy and of loss. Of renewal and of fatigue. I sang out loud to my computer with your extraordinary choir, ‘Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past’.” I was profoundly moved as we gave thanks for the rule of law and celebrated throughout the world those who are dedicated to law. The entire experience uplifted me and renewed me to try my best to do God’s work in this moment of leadership and beyond, and to ‘be of good courage’. You ministered to me from across the sea!” © Szilvia Booker
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Sovereignty Regained, EU Law Retained
SOVEREIGNTY REGAINED, EU LAW RETAINED By Master Philip Moser
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Luxembourg, on the 12 February 2020. The President of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Koen Lenaerts, is giving a valedictory address bidding farewell to the last United Kingdom judge of the CJEU, Christopher Vajda QC, following the departure of the UK from the EU on 31 January of that year. President Lenaerts pays tribute to the British judges’ contribution, both to the acquis communautaire and the Court itself, as follows: “Successive British members have, over the past 47 years, enriched our institution, both intellectually and personally, bringing to their work the rigorous, case-law based approach that is the hallmark of common law systems, as well as their British pragmatism and common sense, not to mention their inimitable sense of humour.” Successive CJEU presidents have paid similar compliments to the Bar over the years of UK membership. Writing in the Spring 2015 issue of the European Advocate (pp.2-7), then President Skouris said this about the UK’s distinctive approach to representation before the Court: “…it is worth noting that the United Kingdom is not represented by government agents before the Court but by independent and experienced advocates. Those advocates carefully test whether the government’s arguments are intuitively persuasive and optimize their presentation so that it will immediately catch the attention of the Judges. Common lawyers therefore manage to give more distinctive relevance to an oral argument than civil lawyers do, and their written and oral presentations are usually particularly clear, concise and gripping.” This considerable common law contribution to the hearings in Luxembourg and the case law of the CJEU will not be lost entirely following the exit of the UK from the EU, as the Irish Bar remains. Intending no offence to our Irish colleagues, however, and from the clear disparity in the numbers of cases and barristers alone, it is clear that this contribution will be much diminished without the UK. Over those 47 years, a distinctive body of EU law practitioners evolved at the Bar of England and Wales, with a particular specialism in advocacy before the CJEU, both in references for preliminary rulings from national courts and tribunals and in direct actions (which are mostly against Commission decisions) before the court of first instance, the General Court.
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The barristers who appeared regularly in Luxembourg were the most prominent exponents of the practice of EU law at the Bar, and one might mention the late David Vaughan CBE QC, Eleanor Sharpston QC, Paul Lasok QC or David Anderson QC in a very non-exhaustive list, with others too numerous to add here. The hearings in Luxembourg, although often only lasting a morning, and the judgments delivered by the Court, were likewise the most visible forensic features of the influence of EU law on our domestic legal scene. They were however only a part of the whole. EU legislation and other acts of the EU institutions contributed greatly to the UK statute book, mainly by way of regulations (which were directly applicable without the need for implementation) and directives (which required implementation but could take ‘direct effect’ if unimplemented). It was after all a key feature of EU law that it took effect in, as well as taking precedence within, national law. This being the very feature that had proved controversial throughout UK membership and was generally summed up by the term ‘sovereignty’, which became a key driver for Brexit. In EU terms this is the principle of ‘precedence’ established, well before UK membership, in Case 6/64 Costa v ENEL [1964] ECR 585: “By contrast with ordinary international treaties, the EEC Treaty has created its own legal system which, on the entry into force of the Treaty, became an integral part of the legal systems of the Member States and which their courts are bound to apply. By creating a community of unlimited duration, having its own institutions, its own personality, its own legal capacity and capacity of representation on the international plane and, more particularly, real powers stemming from a limitation of sovereignty or a transfer of powers from the States to the community, the Member States have limited their sovereign rights, albeit within limited fields, and have thus created a body of law which binds both their nationals and themselves.” That transfer of the UK’s sovereign rights was reversed by Brexit and the Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA) between the UK and the EU. Thus, the precedence of EU law in the UK (with exceptions for Northern Ireland under the Ireland-Northern Ireland Protocol to the Withdrawal Agreement) ended on 31 December 2020, some eleven months after the UK’s actual exit. The jurisdiction of the CJEU in the UK likewise ended that day.
Treasury
The immediate consequence for the EU Bar is that the visible manifestation of EU practice via appearances in Luxembourg is now no longer open to barristers in post-2020 actions. That is a matter of regret not merely for those who practised in that Court, but also for UK and other (eg US) clients who have traditionally preferred the English Bar for this work. An obvious example would be a UK company fined for breach of EU competition law (which famously takes extraterritorial effect), seeking to bring a direct action in the General Court to annul the Commission’s decision. That company will no longer be able to use an English barrister and will have to seek foreign representation (although happily English remains an official language of the Court, so that at least it will not have to litigate in a foreign language – as eg Japanese companies are forced to do). That problem of representation may in part be overcome by those with a particular expertise in this area being called to the Brussels or Irish Bars. As ever, the London legal market will find a solution. Yet however important cases before the CJEU may be for those practitioners who regularly appear in Luxembourg and their clients, they are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the consequences of Brexit for the profession.
It is worth noting that Article 193(g) TCA, whilst not being particularly clearly drafted, contains a carve-out for legal arbitration, mediation and conciliation services, although EU states may once again impose a registration requirement or a time limit for the duration of stay in the host state.
The consequences for the profession and practice at the Bar fall into two main categories, the first being regulatory consequences and the second being consequences concerning substantive law. Broadly speaking, the TCA contains little in the way of good news for the Bar in the first category whereas the second category looks set to keep practitioners busy for many years to come. It is impossible to give a comprehensive account of either of these areas within the scope of this article, but each will be examined in outline and in turn below. Before the 1 January 2021, when the TCA took provisional effect, barristers in England & Wales enjoyed rights of establishment, under the Lawyers Establishment Directive 98/5/EC, as well as a right to provide services, under the Lawyers Services Directive 77/249/EC, throughout the European Economic Area (EEA; the EU plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein). Those rights were dependent primarily upon being qualified in a Member State and to some extent also on holding EEA citizenship. They included, for instance, the right to appear in any EEA court (provided it was in conjunction with a host state lawyer) and the right to give advice anywhere in the EEA, whether in person on a fly-in-fly-out basis or remotely, in writing or over the ‘phone, from another EEA state. For those barristers who are also members of an EU Bar (and, for mobility rights, also hold EEA nationality) their right to provide legal services in the EEA was preserved by the Withdrawal Agreement 2019 (WA). There are also certain other exceptions under the WA, such as for those instructed prior to 31 December 2020 in cases pending before the CJEU, or instructed after that date in CJEU cases under the WA itself up to 31 December 2028. The TCA has not however replicated the full freedom to provide legal services that existed before 2021 and it is important for practitioners to be aware of the change. Under Articles 192 to 194 TCA, barristers may continue to provide legal advice (only) in relation to English law and public international law, but excluding EU law, within the EU, subject to the 27 Member States’ individual registration or mobility (eg visa) requirements. There is also no guarantee that such advice will be covered by legal professional privilege (which in most EU states attaches to the status of the advice giver rather than the nature of the advice). Anyone giving such advice will thus be well advised to have it signed off also by an EEA qualified lawyer.
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The Bar Council maintains a very helpful page on these matters and on Brexit and the new EU-UK relationship generally on its website, reflecting the work of its Future Relations Working Group under the chairmanship of Hugh Mercer QC. On substantive law post-2020, the prospects for practitioners are considerably more exciting. UK lawyers operating in the general EU law sphere now find themselves within a new ‘ecosystem’ of laws (a term coined by Jack Williams in his extremely useful blog on the new relationship between the UK and EU) consisting of retained EU law, the WA, the TCA (together with the EU (Future Relationship) Act 2020 that carries it into effect in UK law) as well as the Internal Market Act 2020. In addition, ‘traditional’ EU law will continue to apply to matters that occurred pre-exit where it constitutes the applicable law at the time of the relevant events. In further addition, some areas of the law, even in England, may be affected by the Northern Ireland Protocol (eg a UK State aid measure in England that has effect in Northern Ireland as well). In yet further addition, the position under private international law remains in flux, with the UK having left the so-called Brussels Regime on jurisdiction and the mutual recognition and enforcement of judgments and where UK accession to the Lugano Convention on these matters is currently still being blocked by the European Commission. The concept of “retained EU law” was introduced by the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (EUWA). It preserves what was EU law in our national law, in five categories: (i) EU-derived domestic legislation (s. 2 EUWA), (ii) EU direct legislation (s. 3 EUWA), (iii) certain ‘saved’ directly effective rights (s. 4 EUWA), (iv) retained CJEU case law (s. 6 EUWA), and (v) retained general principles of EU law (s. 6 EUWA). This will likely provide the Bar and the courts with years of work, spent delineating what has or has not been ‘retained’ (the concept of ‘saved’ direct effect being particularly unclear) and how this falls to be applied post-Brexit. Under section 6(4) EUWA the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court may also depart from retained EU case law. This gives an opportunity to look afresh at nostrums of EU law, untrammelled by the principle of precedence and (at least within orthodox English law principles of departing from previous authority) the concept of stare decisis.
This gives an opportunity to look afresh at nostrums of EU law, untrammelled by the principle of precedence and (at least within orthodox English law principles of departing from previous authority) the concept of stare decisis.
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Court of Justice of the European Union in Kirchberg, Luxembourg © Ricochet64 – stock.adobe.com
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Another particular feature of retained EU law that carries some echoes of the CJEU’s ability to identify the ‘direct effect’ of EU legislation is section 29 of the EU (Future Relationship) Act 2020 (EUFRA). It provides that existing domestic law has effect “with modifications as are required for the purposes of implementing in [domestic law] the [TCA] …”, a potentially extremely wide power for the UK Courts to implement in domestic law any TCA provision, and indeed the intended effect of any TCA provision, even if not otherwise implemented. An early guide to how retained EU law is to be interpreted and applied is to be found in the judgment of Lord Justice Green in Lipton v BA City Flyer Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 454. Although strictly obiter (the facts of Lipton were pre-exit and the principles were said to be effectively neutral in that case: judgment, para. 84), Lipton is a fascinating preview of litigation yet to come in this field where, as Green LJ put it: “As at this point in time a new set of legal arrangements are in place which governed the relationship of the UK to EU law. The Court cannot therefore assume that the old ways of looking at EU derived law still hold good. We must apply the new approach. There is much that is familiar but there are also significant differences.” Apart from identifying whether EU law had been retained (eg because it was an EU regulation, as in Lipton), a court must look to see whether there have been any amendments, e.g. pursuant to the powers to correct any “deficiency” pursuant to s. 8 EUWA. Then the court must examine whether the retained EU law has been somehow abrogated or overtaken by the WA or the TCA, since there exists a form of hierarchy of statutes, with relevant WA or TCA law being supreme over other domestic law, including retained EU law.
That is not the end of the exercise, because although (in the words of Green LJ, judgment para. 75) “the TCA does not have direct effect”, s. 29 EUFRA may yet come into play as a “sweepingup mechanism” (ibid, para. 77), an exercise wherein Green LJ gives a very wide scope to the phrase “has effect” as “a generic mechanism to achieve full implementation” without the further involvement of parliament (see generally, ibid at paras. 78-82). Combined with the appellate courts’ power to depart from previous EU authority discussed above, the TCA is likely to provide potent ground for future legal argument and forensic development of the law. Additionally, there will be opportunities for practitioners to break new ground in areas of the law where EU law was not retained, most obviously in the field of State aid under the Subsidy Control Bill 2021 and public procurement under the public procurement bill planned for Autumn 2021, as well as whatever regime finally replaces the Brussels regulations on jurisdiction and judgments. The scope for cross-border practice may have been narrowed by the UK’s departure from the EU, but there is a new horizon for the development of retained EU and related domestic law. The development is likely to occupy not only the present generation but also coming generations of barristers in the 21st century, in a manner not unlike the work of the pioneers of EU law at the English Bar in the 20th century. Philip Moser QC Monckton Chambers SOURCES:
TCA as ratified and in final form on 30 April 2021: ec.europa.eu/info/relations-united-kingdom/euuk-trade-and-cooperation-agreement_en Bar Council Brexit pages: www.barcouncil.org.uk/policy-representation/ policy-issues/eu/brexit.html EU relations law blog: eurelationslaw.com
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‘REVELLING’ IN MY NEW ROLE FOR THE INNER TEMPLE By Master Alastair Hodge INTRODUCTION
REVELLING IN 2021 AND BEYOND
At the end of 2020, I was delighted and honoured to be appointed the Inner Temple’s Master of Revels.
Due to the impact of both Project Pegasus and the COVID-19 pandemic, it has not been an altogether easy task to arrange Revels events during 2021.
In order to fully appreciate the significance of this role, I decided that my first port of call should be the Inn’s Archivist, Celia Pilkington, to determine what actually went on in the Revels of years gone by.
HISTORICAL REVELLING AT THE INNER TEMPLE Written records of the Revels do not seem to have been kept, or else have been subsequently lost. However, some accounts remain. It is known that each Inn appointed ‘Princes of Misrule’ to lead the Revels at each institution. At the Inner Temple, this man was known as the ‘Prince of the Sophie’ (the Sophie being a term used to refer to the ruler of Persia at that time). On occasion, important public figures were selected. For example, the Inner Temple in 1561 selected the royal favourite Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, as the Prince of the Sophie, but also ‘Christmas Prince and Master of the Revels’. Dudley›s revels are said to have been particularly extravagant. In general, the Revels were regarded as a period of extravagant entertainment and wild partying, though the events generally followed a set, traditional sequence. Members of the Inn who refused to become involved in the events were fined as a punishment. The nature of the Revels often varied depending on the rank of the member. The young students were noted to have taken part in energetic and intimate dances with women, such as the galliard, and exuberant singing, whilst the more senior Benchers had more formal, traditional dances and sang psalms. Other entertainments included feasts and mock trials.
However, many members of the Inn have enjoyed the ‘Master H Meets…’ series of amusing and informative interviews, which were run via Zoom from March to July. Indeed, I am very grateful to the first group of interviewees, namely Greg Dorey (Sub-Treasurer), Master Rehana Azib, Sean Harkin (Head Gardener), Fern Schofield, Master Alison Foster and Master Tunde Okewale for agreeing to participate. For those of you who missed the live interviews, recordings of each session are still available to watch on the ‘Master H Meets Again’ section of the Inn’s website. On 23 November 2021, we shall be resurrecting ‘Inner Temple’s Got Talent’ in the Parliament Chamber, which was last performed in 2013. More details of how to get involved will be published in September 2021. Planning is also underway for a number of small events in the lead-up to Christmas 2021, as well as a major event in the Temple Church in mid-2022. If any member of the Inn, whether Bencher, Member of Hall, Pupil or Student, is interested in becoming involved in the Revels, please contact the Treasury Office in the first instance. Alastair Hodge Master of Revels For Master H Meets Again: innertemple.org.uk/masterhmeetsagain
The Revels attracted an audience of well-connected people of high rank. Of note, Queen Elizabeth I attended one Revels session at the Inner Temple where she noted the dancing ability of Christopher Hatton, whom she later appointed Lord Chancellor of England. That said, the quality of Revels seems to have declined in the 17th century and into the early 18th century. Indeed, the last are thought to have been those of the Inner Temple in 1733. However, the Revels were revived at the Inns in the mid20th century by Master Hubert Monroe (a Bencher of the Middle Temple) and have since provided seasonal entertainment in the form of sketches, songs and jokes. In more recent times, the Inner Temple enjoyed a very lucrative period of Revels under the guidance of Master Tom Shields, and my immediate predecessor, Master Tom Kinninmont, did much to build on that foundation. It is now my role to write a further chapter into the history books and maintain the revels as a key aspect of Inn life. 101
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History Society: Law in the Time of Plague
HISTORY SOCIETY:
LAW IN A TIME OF PLAGUE:
WAS THE LAW A GOOD DOCTOR? Master John Baker and Master John Wass in conversation with Master Donald Cryan via webinar on Monday 22 March 2021.
A Donald Cryan: This evening, we are concerned with the law’s response to plague in the Tudor and Stuart periods. What is of interest here is how the executive used the law. Were their actions legitimate in constitutional terms? How effective was the law that they administered? And in medical terms, did the law do more harm than good? Professor Wass, I understand that the Black Death in the mid-14th century was part of the second great wave of bubonic plague and it was enormously devastating. How far would the echo of that have impacted down the years? JW: The Black Death was a slight misnomer because they went blue, they became cyanosed, because it often affected the lungs. A third of the population of Europe died. I think it is fair to say it reshaped the course of history. There was huge psychological impact because this high mortality destroyed the confidence of the population of the world in the future. And it affected social architecture: indeed, the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was possibly related to the social discord caused by the Black Death of some years earlier. The plague of 1665 is well documented. This was an awful illness. And there was death in considerable agony. It was originally thought to be spread by rat-borne fleas. More recent data shows that there is human-to-human transmission, usually by human fleas and body lice. It is interesting also that plague still exists in parts of the USA and possibly in North Korea, so it is something which has never ever been seriously got rid of. DC: We know that the distribution of the plague amongst the different levels of society was by no means the same. Why was this? How different was it for the poor and the rich? Is it much the same as now?
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JW: The answer to all that is, yes. The price of labour rose because there was a predominant infection of people who were in the lower socio-economic groups, probably largely related to their degree of overcrowding. That resulted in this shift in the distribution of wealth. It is very interesting that in Cambridge there were 972 people who got the plague, but not a single academic got the plague. Because actually they had moved out of Cambridge, and that’s something which actually is a reflection of how it affected people: people who were affected in perhaps the higher socio-economic groups moved away from where all the infections were.
In Cambridge there were 972 people who got the plague, but not a single academic got the plague. Because actually they had moved out of Cambridge, and that’s something which actually is a reflection of how it affected people: people who were affected in perhaps the higher socio-economic groups moved away from where all the infections were. DC: Sir John, Professor Wass has set out the public health emergency which the Tudor and Stuart administrations were facing. How did the great institutions deal with that? What was the practical response?
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JB: The law books are less informative than might be expected, and it is the law that I am going to concentrate on. The first statute was not until 1604. The case law is also sparse. One reason for that is that many of the measures were extra-legal. For instance, in colleges and Inns of Court, the solution was that everyone just went away, leaving the servants behind. The only regulations needed were retrospective, for instance to modify the residence qualifications.
The orders in Council contained a clause very reminiscent of modern legislation: “The said Justices may put in execution any other orders that by them at their general assembly shall be devised and thought meet tending to the preservation of His Majesty’s subjects from infection.” And it went on to say that such orders were to be enforced by imprisonment. None of this was authorised by statute.
Prospective regulation had to be introduced for the central courts of law, since in normal circumstances plaintiffs who failed to continue their actions from one return day to the next would automatically lose their cases. If courts stopped sitting, everyone’s suits would be discontinued and have to be started again. The first example of a royal command to adjourn the term for plague comes from the time of the Black Death. Parliament was similarly adjourned or prorogued when necessary. Some of the earliest written regulations by the Privy Council were made to ensure the isolation and safety of the King’s own court. DC: There were many complex issues when dealing with the measures taken by regulation and by statute, and the role of the executive and parliament. How did this play out in the 16th and 17th centuries? How were the plagues controlled in those times? JB: During the 16th century, written plague regulations were issued both by central government and by local authorities themselves. But by the 1550s, seemingly without any written regulation, in towns throughout the country, sheds or cabins for infected people were being built on the outskirts. Infected houses were being shut up, and the movement of people and goods was restricted. That rested on compulsion, but it was done without any authorisation by parliament or central government. Then, under Elizabeth I, the government became more dirigiste. In 1577, the Privy Council ordered inquiries to be made as to what orders were taken locally for the restraining of persons dwelling in houses infected from the company of others not infected. And, interestingly: “Whether there has been any partiality used either in restraining the poor upon of plague more than the rich, or in sparing the rich transgressing the good orders taken for the stay of infection and punishing the poorer sort.” It was clearly assumed that local authorities could and should be imposing such restrictions, though the power was not derived from any previous proclamation, let alone Act of Parliament.
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DC: I know that you have recently come across something rather interesting which shines a particular light on the detail of how these orders were carried into effect? JB: Yes, I acquired a manuscript book of memoranda kept by a Staffordshire JP, Anthony Kynnersley, which contains a number of local plague measures from 1603, just before the statute. One refers to the isolation of merchants who had gone to London, contrary to his command, and brought back packs of wares. Kynnersley also drew up orders for the forthcoming fair in Uttoxeter. Warders were to be placed at all street ends leading into the town. All householders receiving suspected persons were to receive condign punishment, and three whippers were to be paid by the town, to whip away rogues, vagabonds and beggars. And it says that these orders were made by consent of the constable and inhabitants of Uttoxeter. DC: If those proclamations were accepted as an effective way of acting as prophylactic measures against the plague, was the same true of other public health measures in those times? JB: London was the biggest cause for concern because its growing overpopulation was causing health hazards and social problems. In 1580, the Privy Council issued a proclamation against building new houses in London and against subdividing houses. The proclamation warned property developers not to put the pursuit of “private lucre” before the public interest and threatened offenders with imprisonment without bail. It was thought desirable to back that up by statute in 1593 because it really did seem to impinge on the rights of freehold property.
In 1578, the Council published its own directions, attributing the increase in contagion to a wilful failure by the authorities to give proper directions. The orders were directed at local authorities, that is the mayors and Justices of the Peace (JPs), and they provided that houses affected by the plague were to be closed up until six weeks after the sickness had passed. These rules were to be enforced by watchmen, and offenders were to be put in the stocks in the highway next to the infected house. At the same time, public medical guidance was issued by the College of Physicians.
Above: From Edward Coke’s Third Institute of the Laws of England Left, Top L–R: Master John Baker, Master Donald Cryan Bottom Left: Master John Wass
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History Society: Law in the Time of Plague
A new proclamation in 1602 gave jurisdiction to the Star Chamber to expel inmates and to order new buildings to be pulled down. Concerns were expressed about this in parliament. It was clear law that the government could not alter the law by proclamation. By what right, then, could the Privy Council stop people building on their own freehold, and even pull down the houses which they built? The SolicitorGeneral (Bacon) was challenged on this in the Star Chamber in 1607. He was forced to rely on the principle that necessity knows no law and said it was dangerous to follow precedents too slavishly. He was inviting the court to make it up!
There is a very significant comparison between 1665 and now, with social inequalities, the King or the Queen isolating in Windsor, gatherings banned, alehouses banned, theatres shut, trade stopped and the Scotland border shutting. I think the only thing that is different now is vaccination.
DC: If there was no prerogative power vested in the King, and no statutory authority had been granted by parliament, might there yet have been a common law jurisdiction which might be invoked? JB: Coke’s commentary on the lapsed 1604 Act contains several authorities in the margin. One was the writ De Leproso Amovendo, which enabled lepers to be moved out of contact with society. Numerous lazar houses, or leper hospitals, were built in medieval times, yet there is little or no evidence the writ was ever used, and no evidence that it was extended to other diseases. But you could argue that, as a matter of legal theory, it showed that people considered unfit to mix in company could be compulsorily isolated. Another line of argument might have been that spreading plague was a common-law offence and, therefore, reasonable steps could be taken to prevent it. In an unpublished case of 1569, it was said that “if someone who has a horrible sickness be in my house and will not depart, an action will lie against him. And yet he taketh not any air from me, but infecteth that which I have.”
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The most interesting case I found is another unpublished case. In 1596, an action of false imprisonment was brought against the mayor of Coventry for confining someone from a plagueridden house under a local ordinance. Chief Justice Anderson said the plaintiff had not only deserved imprisonment but really deserved to be imprisoned again for his audacity in bringing the action. Of course, that was meant ‘in terrorem’ rather than seriously. But he amplified the deterrent effect by recollecting a case which had come before him: a man who had visible plague sores on him had visited his sister and embraced her, with the result that she and all her children died. He was indicted and convicted of murder and hanged. Sixty years later, Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice, argued that without proof of an intention to cause harm, this would not even be manslaughter. Reading some of the voluminous literature on plague and pestilence in early modern England, I have been struck recently by the many obvious resonances with the present. Besides the suffering and the death, and the overfilled hospitals, we find shops, pubs and schools closed, travel restricted, employees furloughed or made redundant; social distancing, with funerals limited to six persons; public gatherings and entertainments forbidden; marshals and watchmen to enforce lockdown; uncertainties about what it was safe to do; and the moral dilemma over balancing common humanity with the need to shut away the unfortunate. The legal history which I have been looking at shows that people were generally willing to accept a measure of governmental control without too much anxiety about the source of its authority. DC: Professor Wass, could you tell us about the doctors’ response? JW: I am going to start with the Royal College of Physicians, founded in 1518, with a royal charter through parliament in 1523. And it is interesting that the then Queen asked for measures to combat the plague. They founded the idea of public health in terms of hygiene, air pollution, food sanity, and population density and social distancing. Plague Commissions were set up based on the idea of ‘salus populi suprema lex esto’ (‘the health of the people is the highest law’).
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There is a very significant comparison between 1665 and now, with social inequalities, the King or the Queen isolating in Windsor, gatherings banned, alehouses banned, theatres shut, trade stopped and the Scotland border shutting. I think the only thing that is different now is vaccination. DC: What about the middle classes, the middling type of people? What was the impact upon them of the plague? JW: Okay, take Shakespeare as an example of this. In the 16th century, a couple in Stratford-on-Avon lost two children to bubonic plague, and the couple barricaded themselves in to protect their three-month-old son, William, who survived. And in fact, a quarter of the population in Stratford were killed in the year of William Shakespeare’s birth. His 11-year-old son, Hamnet, reputedly died from bubonic plague in 1596. Some ten years later Shakespeare wrote King Lear during a period of plague lock-down, and it is interesting to note that the theatres were shut down for 60 per cent of the time from 1603 to 1613. DC: Can we put the historic picture into a modern context? JW: This goes back to Spanish flu: 102 years ago, somebody travelled to a small town in Alaska and then became sick. Within a week, 72 out of 90 of the population had died. It was a hugely infectious viral illness. Fifteen million people are estimated to have died during Spanish flu. Around 4.2 million people have died of COVID-19 (as of August 2021). As a doctor, you have to be a pathological optimist. It is fair to say that we have led the world in this country on vaccination and development. We have also led the world in the genomic testing of new viruses and new mutations in these viruses. I think the healthcare infrastructure in our country is amazing. It is unique because all the NHS hospitals work together in the National Institute of Health Research, and that has had a hugely beneficial impact on our research. I think the only defence of humans is their wits, and I think in those circumstances we have done not too badly. So, my conclusion is that the law is probably not a good doctor. But neither are the doctors. I think, though, they are getting better. Professor Sir John Baker QC LLD FBA Downing Professor Emeritus of the Laws of England
Professor John Wass MA MD FRCP Professor of Endocrinology, University of Oxford
His Honour Donald Cryan (Hon) LLD Former Treasurer of the Inner Temple
For the full video recording of this talk: innertemple.org.uk/plague
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A Reflection Upon the Case of Keziah Lewis
A REFLECTION UPON THE CASE OF KEZIAH LEWIS By Master Rhys Taylor
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The County Court of Pontypridd
I recently came into possession of a newspaper report of a court case in 1934. It concerns a Keziah Lewis. Keziah was my great-great-grandmother. The newspaper report is from the Welsh newspaper of record, the Western Mail. It was dated 28 March 1934. Keziah was defending an action brought by her second husband, William Lewis (her first husband, a stonemason, having pre-deceased her), for the transfer of her properties over to him and the delivery of money invested by her in war loans and various banks. The case proceeded in the Bridgend County Court. It was heard by His Honour Judge Rowland Rowlands. I am not only interested in this from a personal family history point of view but also because I am a barrister who practises in the field of family law. It has touched me. I am a member of the Wales and Chester Circuit and have spent many years plying my trade in the courts of south Wales, including, prior to its closure, the Bridgend County Court.
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The reporting of the proceedings is also of note, given that family proceedings in the modern age have largely been heard in private. The debate about privacy verses transparency is extremely important and goes to the heart of justice being seen to be done. Well-intentioned privacy concerns have often been the handmaiden for the jibe of there being a ‘secret’ family court. Not so in 1934, when a local newspaper reporter was available to be present in a small court centre in south Wales to take a note of proceedings and record it for posterity. Keziah was the daughter of Catherine Lewis. Although unmarried and the mother of five illegitimate children, Catherine was canny and became prosperous. Catherine had started life as a furniture polisher but is noted in later census records as being the proprietor of a furniture store. Keziah’s capital was most probably derived from inheritance via Catherine.
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The claim was brought against Keziah whilst she and Mr William Lewis were still married, as she refused to allow her capital to vest with her new husband. Family legend has it that Mr Lewis was known in the wider family as ‘Fiend’. These facts do not speak of a happy marriage.
Keziah is buried, with her first husband, in the tiny Welsh hamlet of Llangynwyd. Legal actions about money and my abiding professional preoccupation are perhaps put into a different perspective when trudging around a churchyard looking at sunken and almost forgotten gravestones.
The action was most probably brought under the Married Women’s Property Act 1882, to determine ownership.
Years ago, by chance, I was intrigued to find, in a backroom of the Bridgend County Court, an ancient legal textbook summarising the common law. It was written by Master Tom Denning QC. It was dated from the 1930s – prior to Mr Denning’s appointment to the bench. Might this book even have been consulted when Keziah’s case was determined? I feel I can almost reach back across the chasm of time.
The claim was for about £1500 and concerned four properties in Maesteg, numbers 1, 1a and 54 St Michael’s Road, Maesteg, and 1 Station Hill, Maesteg. His Honour stayed the proceedings, having suggested a settlement in the sum of £310 in full satisfaction of the claim, with each party to bear their own costs. It is hard to put a precise current value on the size of the claim or the settlement, but by the standards of the day and the geography, this was a lot of money. The size of the settlement by reference to the size of the claim, and the fact no order for costs was made, suggests a degree of success on Keziah’s part. I am intrigued to read of the cross-examination of Mr Lewis in the news report, which remains frustratingly silent as to the identity of counsel involved. My first chambers, itself now consigned to history, was 33 Park Place in Cardiff. On the way into the clerks’ room, it had an ancient name board of barristers going back to about this time. Might the mystery counsel even have been one of them? I can find little detail concerning Judge Rowland Rowlands. On a roll of honour, he is noted as being the judge in Pontypridd (a nearby court centre) from 1917 until 1935. A significant figure in his day, the Internet now yields only a shadow of him, as the father of Second Lieutenant Franklyn Theodore Rowland Rowlands, who was killed in the First World War.
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Legal actions about money and my abiding professional preoccupation are perhaps put into a different perspective when trudging around a churchyard looking at sunken and almost forgotten gravestones. Whilst the newspaper article is transparent about some ancient dispute in a way that many current family law disputes are not, I am also conscious that in writing this I am revealing something of myself. I hail from the Rhondda Valley, near to Bridgend. Whilst I have long since left it behind, it birthed and formed me. In a distant way, it still holds me. What would Catherine and Keziah have made of their barrister descendent? Had I been that nameless crossexamining counsel, would Keziah have applauded me? Had I appeared for ‘Fiend’, would she have despised me? Rhys Taylor 30 Park Place
St Cynwyd’s parish church, Llangynwyd
Western Mail, 28 March 1934
© John Lord / St Cynwyd’s Church, Llangynwyd / CC BY-SA 2.0
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Porters: ‘Guardians of the Gates’
PORTERS: ‘GUARDIANS OF THE GATES’ By the Head Porter
I Figure 1: Porters
Porter with horn
If you were asked what the definition of a porter was, you would probably come up with an answer describing something to the picture at figure 1. However, throughout history, dating back to biblical times, the task of those titled porters has, it seems, been mainly connected with security and keeping premises secure.
The Roman Empire is said to also have been quite innovative in its use of hired security personnel and is thought to have laid the foundations for practices that still exist to this day. Wealthy Roman families would often hire gladiators to protect their families and their property. These gladiators would more than likely be soldiers who had hired themselves out in between military campaigns.
The real beginnings of the use of hired guards and security personnel stretch as far back as ancient Egypt. During 13th century BC, Pharaoh Ramses II recruited and relied on a foreign legion of guards known as the Medjai, a generic term for scout or guard. During the time of the Levites, the office of porter was in some sort military; properly speaking, they were the soldiers of the Lord and the guards of his house, to whose charge the several gates of the courts of the sanctuary were appointed. Their proper business was to open and shut the gates, and to attend at them by day as a sort of peace officer, in order to prevent any tumult among the people; to keep strangers and the excommunicated and unclean persons from entering into the holy court; and, in short, to prevent whatever might be prejudicial to the safety, peace and purity of the holy place and service. The military connection continues today with the three current Porters at the Inner Temple all having served previously, a combined total of nearly 70 years, with the armed forces.
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The Roman Empire is said to also have been quite innovative in its use of hired security personnel. The practice of using watchmen to protect and guard local towns and cities continued in England during the Middle Ages. Their place and considerable role in English history is signified by numerous writs and statutes; in 1233, an ordinance was issued that called for the appointment of watchmen and, perhaps more importantly, a statute was declared by King Edward I that sought to establish and formalise security on a more local level. The Statute of Winchester of 1285 applied to all English towns and villages and all English citizens. The use of watchmen developed and continued into the industrial age, when industrial firms began to create their own unit of guards to counter possible strikes and/or violence. In an unprecedented move, tax revenues were used for the first time in 1737 to pay for the night patrol guards, and in 1748, Henry Fielding, an English novelist and magistrate, called for the founding of a permanent, well-paid, professional security force. Some believe this to have been London’s first police force.
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An internet search for the definition of the family name ‘Porter’ states, “Occupational name for the gatekeeper of a walled town or city, or the doorkeeper of a great house, castle, or monastery, from Middle English porter ‘doorkeeper’, ‘gatekeeper’.” The office often came with accommodation, lands and other privileges for the bearer, and in some cases was hereditary, especially in the case of a royal castle. Privileges were a theme that seem linked to the role of porter, and in 1620, John Bird, who took over the role due to the death of William Knight, inherited the wages usual and the benefit and letting of a number of shops, including two shops near Ram Alley gate, located north of the Inner Temple. In 1586, a Council order, sent to the Readers of all four Inns of Court, stated that a porter be appointed to shut up the gates of the Inn at half past nine every night, and to keep them shut until the next morning. By 1592, the Inn had four ‘watchmen’ and over the years as the Inn grew, so did the porters’ responsibilities. In the City, crime evolved into a major social problem in the years between 1580 and 1640, with the most common criminal acts involving trespasses against property. For much of the 17th century, Britain was engaged in making her writ obeyed across the globe, from India to America. But, curiously, kings and queens failed to get their laws obeyed in key parts of London. One of the most notorious of these ‘liberties’, where people could take refuge from legal authority, was Alsatia, which took up much of the land between Fleet Street and the Thames, and hence had implications for The Inner Temple and its porters. Alsatia’s curious name was derived from Alsace, a disputed land both France and Germany laid claim to, which was well known for its lawlessness. Alsatia was the most famous of the dozen or so legal safe havens in London. Among those who took refuge in Alsatia was Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, who apparently escaped to it in 1692 after being pursued by the authorities for writing seditious material. One area of concern to the Inn was Ram Alley, just off Fleet Street, leading down to Mitre Court, notorious for cut-throats and murderers who took advantage of this immunity from the law. In parliament on 20 December 1595, an order was given that the Temple “shall be watched as in former times and the allowance to the porters for their pains to be assessed at the next parliament; and further that Ram Alley door and the door out of Figtree Court into the Middle Temple shall be shut up”. The rights remained in place until 1697, when they were abolished by an Act of Parliament, although the area maintained its disreputable character for some time. The duties of the porter were, then, chiefly to keep undesirables out of the Inn and prevent them from harassing those dining in Hall. An order of parliament in 1652 also names the porter as one of the officers appointed to carry corpses, and in 1654, a fuller account is given of the increasingly varied role, which required the incumbent to “industriously keep clean the courts, look to the gate and House, and at least once every night walk about the courts and up every stairs to prevent robberies, which have lately been often committed” and to “keep out of the House all vagrant people who cry ‘milk’ or any other thing, not usual and proper to this Society”. The porters’ primary role over the centuries was the safety and security of the Inn, but several duties were embraced due to the social conditions of the time. The Inn was adjacent to the parishes of St Dunstan’s in the east and Clement Danes in the west, much of which would now be described as socially deprived, though it would be difficult to discover districts in London that were not deprived to some degree in the 18th century. As a result of these conditions, many children were abandoned callously by parents who were
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unable or unwilling to care for them. The first reference to a child ‘dropped’ within the Inn and fostered by the Society occurs in the accounts of 1617–18 and the last in 1830.
The duties of the porter were, then, chiefly to keep undesirables out of the Inn and prevent them from harassing those dining in Hall. The Inn of course did its best to discourage such practice, and in 1769, the Bench ordered that suspicious baskets or bundles brought into the Temple be examined to prevent the dropping of any child that may become chargeable to the Society. The children that had avoided the security net were, up to 1754, looked after by the Inn’s servants. Often the children died within a short time as the mortality rate was as high as 50 per cent in London, and therefore a duty of the Head Porter was to organise the baptism as soon as possible after birth, as well as the burials in the Temple Churchyard of those who died. From about 1675, the custom also arose of giving the children the collective surname of Temple, the Christian name being chosen by the foster parents. Since the original order in 1586, the duties, roles and responsibilities of the porters had augmented to the point that official rules and orders were put in place to ensure that security was always maintained and enforced within the Inn. Some of the official Rules and Orders from June 1822 state: “That the Head and Under Porters attend regularly throughout the day, to keep the Temple free from all Beggars, Criers of Old Clothes, &e, to prevent Nuisances and to preserve Peace and good Order therein, and to enable them to do so, it is Resolved that the Porters shall not (upon any pretence whatsoever) go on Errands or Messages out of the Temple except upon the business of their respective Societies. “That they attend their respective gates every night, alternately, from 10 o’clock until 6 o’clock in the morning from Lady-day until Michaelmas-day; and until 7 o’clock from Michaelmasday to Lady day: and that each, on the evening preceding the Night of his Attendance, shall place the several Watchmen (who are to attend him for that purpose at Dusk) at their respective stands: and shall visit, twice at least each Night, every Watchbox in order to ascertain the Vigilance of the Watchmen; and to also prevent any person not belonging to the Temple whose business shall not be satisfactorily explained from entering the Temple after 11 o’clock at Night. “That they take particular care that the several Gates are shut, and also locked, at the appointed periods.” Though much at the Inn has changed in the previous four centuries, the Temple Porters, along with their ‘watchmen’, have continued in their primary duty of keeping the Inn secure. Without security, the Inn could not have developed, and without the existence of security, future progress is imperilled because of the uncertainty from danger of loss or harm. Even with the introduction of technology such as CCTV and electronic access control, it is physical barriers and human intervention that offenders most fear. Some say there are potential weaknesses and limitations of advanced technology used in security measures; sometimes the simplest methods are the best, and that is why the instructions laid down in the Council order of 1586 are very much in evidence today, and we continue to be ‘Guardians of the Gates’. Robert Ellis Head Porter
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Circumstantial Evidence
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE By Master Paul Purnell
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A hush fell on the court as the prosecution QC rose to crossexamine. He pulled his silken gown around him and looked across the court. Henry Pownall was a thin man with a large head. He stood with his shoulders hunched and reminded one of a predatory bird – perhaps a hawk or a kite.
Pownall paused to see if there was any legal objection. There was none. James Burge, for the defence, saw no harm in the line of questioning, although far from the facts in the case. His instincts told him to save his ammunition for more serious objections.
Across the well of Court One, the defendant stood tall in the witness box. His fair hair and blue eyes caught the light from the high windows of the Old Bailey. Gavin Somerset had been accused of the murder of Lord Gower, his father-inlaw. Upon the body of the dead man was an important piece of evidence, a fragment of a typed letter with the words,
The questioning went on; he persisted in querying other mishaps during the young man’s life, dwelling on his bad luck and misfortune. Burge began to feel uneasy. It seemed as if the questions were sympathising with the defendant, almost sharing his misfortunes. His instincts told him there was danger ahead, but what could it be?
“…And misfortunately, we have lost everything…”
Then Pownall turned to the vast unpaid debts and Somerset’s bank account, showing money passing out into casino hands.
The first questions seemed harmless. What was behind it? “Did you lose your parents when very young?” “That’s correct.” “And it caused you much distress?” “Yes.” The cross-examination continued in the same theme. “When you were 21, did you suffer an accident?” “True. I was skiing in Verbier and broke a leg.” The defendant, Somerset, grew in confidence as he related past events. “What was the reason for the accident?” The calm, quiet manner of the query had the jury straining to catch the question. An elderly man at the back leant forward and cupped his ear. “Well, I suppose it must have been my own fault.” Then he interjected, “But that was years ago! I don’t see how it relates to this case.”
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At last, he turned to his relationship with his father-in-law. “Did you realize Lord Gower might have cleared your huge debts with a stroke of his pen?” “I suppose so, but I didn’t approach him.” “Why not?” “Because the old man would never do it. He loathed me for gambling away his daughter’s dowry. But that was our money.” His eyes blazed defiance at the thin, bewigged figure across the width of the court. “How did you feel about his attitude?” Again, the tone of reasonable enquiry seemed more like an interview with a friendly doctor rather than a deadly prosecutor. The earlier questions had been kindly put, so the defendant was eager to build on the apparent sympathy between them. “He was nothing to me.” “Then why did you visit him on the day he died?” Just for a moment, Somerset blinked. The jury leant forward, aroused from torpor. Even the Old Bailey ushers paused and listened.
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“I went to collect some items from the house that belonged to me.”
James Burge was like a stone statue; he betrayed not the slightest sign of the effect this had upon him. One word had convicted his client. He asked several harmless questions in re-examination, but nothing could be done.
“What items?” “Just some clothes and effects I had left from previous visits.” “Why not send a servant for this task?” Somerset smiled at the jury.
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The jury retired at 3.00pm and returned at 3.30pm. The foreman, a thin grey man, stood to give the verdict. “How do you find the defendant? Guilty or not guilty?”
“I can do simple tasks myself. Besides, I knew where the things were.”
He paused and faced the man in the dock.
He was gaining confidence with every question.
“Guilty.”
“Did you find them?”
Somerset sobbed – not from remorse but from the horrible truth that he had betrayed himself.
“Misfortunately, I could not find them all.” A gasp swept across the courtroom. The jury turned to each other and Pownall smiled briefly. It took a few seconds for Somerset to grasp what he had blurted out. “I couldn’t find everything, but it was no great loss…” Henry Pownall took up the paper exhibited and read again the quote from the murderer. “Misfortunately…”
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Henry Pownall scribbled on his brief and looked away from the dock while the defendant was taken down. James Burge leant across the barrister’s row and patted him lightly on the shoulder. Then he turned to his junior. “Time for a drink I suppose?” Paul Purnell QC
“Tell the jury why you truly went to Lord Gower’s house at such an hour?” “Why do you keep asking about that visit? I’ve told you why I went and that is enough!” Red in the face with rage, Somerset gripped the edge of the witness box and glared down at the barrister. Pownall remained silent for a few seconds – the clock on the wall ticked ponderously in the small silence. “This was your letter and murder was your mission that night!” The bravado of the man was snatched away in one instant. He had no words to combat the truth. His body sagged with despair, and he muttered some denial, which nobody could catch.
Author’s note: Henry Pownall QC was a Senior Treasury Counsel who led me many times at the Central Criminal Court. He was an exemplar of the classic jury advocate. He typified the elegance and forensic style to which new barristers might aspire. People shake their heads as ‘the ‘Ancient Mariners’ grumble on, but this little story based on fact may give a glimpse of a past master at work. PS: Of course, though the facts are true, the names and characters, other than HP, have been changed or are figments of my imagination.
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A Portrait of the Inner Temple in 1722
A PORTRAIT OF THE INNER TEMPLE IN 1722 By the Archivist
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This engraving of the Inn in 1722 depicts a place of industrious order and calm with its formal layout, neat walkways, shady squares and fruit trees, where one can easily imagine learned lawyers and students wandering and discussing complex, knotty legal problems. At first glance, the Inn of 1722 is entirely recognisable to its members of today. Its buildings are in many cases earlier versions of those that exist now. 1–9 King’s Bench Walk had been recently completed in 1678 following a fire the year before. Crown Office Row, birthplace of Charles Lamb, was in an extremely decayed state, with the question of wholly rebuilding being seriously considered at a cost of £17,000. The small 14th-century Hall, soon to be outgrown by the burgeoning membership, was situated exactly where our current Hall is now. The Garden is smaller, with the river lapping behind the Garden wall at the end of Paper Buildings. In 1703, a storm lasting over a week (which had left a death toll in England of between 8000 and 15,000) had devastated the Garden and toppled the trees in King’s Bench walk. It was recreated in 1708 by the Gardener Charles Gardiner, and the plan shows his creation in the style of Queen Anne, which includes rows of small fruit trees and turf laid out in formal geometric patterns, interspersed with gravel paths and pots containing holly, yew and box. In 1771, it was to be almost doubled in size by the building of Blackfriars Bridge (1769) and was again enlarged with the creation the Embankment a century later in 1869.
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Yet 1722 was a period of deep moribund decline at the Inn. Students would still enrol, eat their dinners, keep their terms and be called to the Bar etc, but legal education had declined. Readings were no longer being given – readers would simply pay a fee to be considered ‘to have read’. Of the 60 members admitted that year, only 12 were called to the Bar. This decline could be traced back to 1640s, when provision for legal education had collapsed and students were left largely to fend for themselves, forming groups in coffee houses with barristers to try and learn some rudiments, such as mooting. One commentator lamented that “in other professions and sciences there are able and experienced tutors to direct the pupils in the pursuit of such studies as are most suitable for the sphere of action for which they are designed. But gentlemen embark on the law just as the caprice of their friends, or their own imagination dictates…yet the difficulties they meet with, for want of a guide to point out the readiest way to knowledge and to assist them in the pursuit of it, soon dampens their imagination and makes them sink into a supineness which renders them both useless to society and a torment to themselves.” J Simpson, Reflections on the Natural and Acquired Endowments Requisite for Study of the Law (1764)
Of the sixty members admitted that year only twelve were called to the Bar.
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Attempts to address the issue of the qualifications necessary for Call to the Bar were considered at various points during this period. On 5 May 1733, Gray’s Inn and the Inner Temple set out the very minimal proposals necessary for Call:
“Sunday: Roasted beef, six pounds when raw and a baked pudding.
Monday: Boiled beef, six pounds when raw and a fowl.
Tuesday: Roasted beef and an “applepye”.
Wednesday: Boiled beef and a loin of mutton roasted.
Thursday: Roasted beef with an apple pie or baked pudding.
Friday: Salt and fresh fish half one, etc, and a loin of mutton roasted.
Saturday: Shoulders of mutton.”
Become aware of what triggers you. Use self-affirmations. Write down your achievements (what you focus on, you s “Five years’ admittance. Sixteen Terms commons. To have chambers in their own right and hold the same for at least five years after their Call or to pay £20 to the Society in lieu thereof To perform six moot cases. To receive the sacrament and take the oaths to the Government. To discharge all arrears of duties and to give new bonds. All gentlemen coming from any other Inns of Court and having a certificate from the Treasurer of that Society specifying when admitted, what commons and what exercises performed, to be allowed when called to the Bar. These qualifications to be communicated to the other Inns of Court and to be altered or enlarged as may be agreed upon. In the existing qualifications of the Inner Temple Chambers must be held for three years after Call only; six clerks’ commons cases were to be performed and no communication of qualifications to other Inns was made”.
Yet in 1722, the reality of life at the Inns would still have been closer to this description by Roger North, a law student in the 1670s: “Of all the professions in the world that pretend to book learning, none is so destitute of institute as that of the common law. Academic studies which take in that of the civil law have tutors and professors to aid them, and the students are entertained in colleges under a discipline… but for the common law however there are societies which have the outward show or pretence of a collegiate institution, yet in reality nothing of that sort is now to be found in them; and whereas in more ancient times there exercises used in the hall, they were more for probation than instruction [and now even those are shrunk into mere form… But none of those called Masters and distinguished as Benchers, with the power of ordering and disposing all the common affairs of the society, ever pretended to take upon them the direction of the students either to put them or lead them in any way, but each is left himself to enter at which end he fancies, or as accident, inquiry or conversation prompts…” It was not until 1854, following a formal inquiry by a royal commission into the arrangements at the Inns of Court, that a system of education with examinations was instituted (though even the exams were not compulsory until 1872). The students who did manage to navigate their way to achieve a Call to the Bar could study in the new library built in 1708. The new facility housed a growing collection of books aided by Petyt’s £150 legacy and an increase in the annual book budget from £20 to £50, with books chosen by the Treasurer and four named Benchers. The Chief Butler also took on the role of Librarian for the sum of £20 per annum, with an additional £5 for creating a catalogue, which was examined by two junior Benchers. An order appears that wine was allowed in the library but only after 7pm and no more than one pint, which must have relieved the students from their dreary studies. Their meals were taken in the small 14th-century Hall, with lunch at 2pm and supper at 8pm, except on Saturdays when there was no supper. A horn was blown to announce the meals an hour before they would be served. In 1729, an account of commons for the Michaelmas and Hilary terms provides us with the appetising daily fare:
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Fasting days the same as Fridays, except 30th January, the same as usual and no suppers. Thankfully, it was not all commons; there were “battling and exceedings” available to “members for a price, which made a substantial addition to the annual accounts. For a price, members could also vary the simple diet of above with more appetising additions such as:
“ Fish of sortts. Poultry of sortts. Pyes, puddings and pastry. Butter, eggs and bacon. Peas, beans, fruite, rootts, herbs, oranges etc. Pickles, anchovies, salt, oyle, vinegar etc. Sugar, spice, plumbs etc at an annual total of £153.”
At the Benchers’ table, copious quantities of alcohol were also available, with the Benchers building their own brewhouse in 1725. Junior members of the Bar were tasked with setting it up. The spiritual needs of our members were cared for by the Temple Church and its Master Dr Thomas Sherlock (1705–1753) and the Rev Henry Jackson as Reader. The morning service on Sunday began at 10am until 1742, when it changed at the request of several gentlemen, with visiting preachers giving the sermon. In the accounts, a regular payment of £54 for 27 sermons seems to show that there were several visiting preachers. Additionally, a morning service was read every weekday. However, the Inn’s original role as set out in the 1608 Charter, “We will and by these selves, our heirs and successors strictly command shall serve for the education of the students and professors of the laws”, seemed almost forgotten in 1722. Despite the image of formality and industry depicted in this engraving, its buildings were in the most part decayed. This picture of the Inn is summarised perfectly by Charles Dickens in The Pickwick Papers: “Low-roofed, mouldy rooms, where innumerable rolls of parchment, which have been perspiring in secret for the last century, send forth an agreeable odour, which is mingled by day with the scent of the dry rot, and by night with the various exhalations which arise from damp cloaks, festering umbrellas, and the coarsest tallow candles.” The Pickwick Papers (p 271), 1836 The Inn continued to exist in this state of semi-somnolence until the mid-19th century, when radical changes to the legal system and its entire fabric would take place. It was at this point that buildings in the Inn were pulled down and rebuilt – a perfect depiction of how the Inner Temple’s history reflects the development of the British legal system. Celia Pilkington
Archivist
Note: The plan, entitled This View of the Temple, as it appeared in 1722, was re-engraved (from a print presented to The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple in the year 1831. This has been found to be incorrect, as it appears in John Strype’s Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster published in 1720 113
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The Pond Garden
THE POND GARDEN By the Head Gardener
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© Paul Debois
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The Pond Garden
For those who were away from the Inn due to the third lockdown at the start of the year, hopefully the Garden improvements that we worked on in their absence, especially those to the pond, provided welcome new additions. Within this article, I wanted to reflect on the design of the new Pond Garden and give an insight into how it came to be.
The overall scale of the area has been expanded to give enough presence within the Garden but without becoming too dominant. This was also to allow planting within the ground. Deputy Head Gardener Sophie and I used canes, plants from the nursery and benches to mark out and experiment with the scale to get a sense of what it might become. When it was clearer what we wanted, we asked James Scott from the Garden Company to draw up the design on our behalf.
This project has been in plan for just over two years. On taking over the position of Head Gardener in 2018, I used the first year to evaluate with the team and the Masters of the Garden, the Garden’s strengths, alongside opportunities for improvement. The Pond quickly stood out for improvement, not least as it had a leak. In addition, we felt the area was not in proportion with the rest of the Garden. The Pond’s brickwork, which was added in the 1970s, was rather suburban and at odds with the grandeur of its surroundings. In winter, with the lack of planting to soften it, it looked especially stark and uninviting. Therefore, rather than just repair the leak, there was an opportunity to redesign the pond area to sit more sympathetically within the wider Garden. Thankfully, the Inn agreed and so we began the process of a new design for the area. To begin, we set out parameters of what we wanted from the area. People are drawn to water, so we wanted the new space to have a feeling of seclusion (a ‘garden room’ set within the Garden) that gives small groups a place to gather, alongside individuals who may want to be alone. The glorious views out from the pond area, either back over the Garden to the Main Gates or outwards over the river towards Big Ben, were something we wanted to celebrate through the design. In addition, it was felt the choice of materials should unify with those in the wider Garden.
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The Pond Garden pre-works
The Pond Garden in spring
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For the new design, the statue of the boy holding the book with the Lamb quote “Lawyers were children once” which had previously been attached to the side of the Pond, has been repositioned into a bed to allow a circular walking route around the water. The Pond brick surround has been replaced with Portland stone to complement the Main Gates and Sundial. The surround has been made slightly thinner and higher to give a more elegant proportion. The paving has also been replaced with CEDEC to marry with the other path surfacing across the Garden. With the area enlarged, it allows different-sized seating alcoves, which are surrounded by planting. The largest seating area faces west towards Big Ben for sunset views and is large enough to accommodate a bench and two armchairs for small groups to socialise. For the planting, we wanted to create the feeling of a green ‘oasis’ with the water as the focus. Again, it needed to pick up on existing elements across the Garden. Yew hedging was selected to link to the yew on the Broadwalk and the large yew topiary shapes either side of the Peony Garden. With time, the Pond’s yew will be clipped into low, organic cloud shapes to enclose the new Garden, allowing a feeling of seclusion when seated, but allowing wide views across the Garden when standing.
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Pond contruction, portland stone
Emily planting
We also wanted some verticals to ‘bridge’ the planting with our large veteran plane trees on the lawn. Multi-stemmed cherry trees, Prunus x yeodensis and Prunus incisa ‘The Bride’, were selected for this and for their stunning blossom in early spring. These have also been planted in other locations in the wider Garden to create one whole ‘picture’.
The hard landscaping began in late summer 2019 and was carried out by the Garden Company, which was then followed by the entire team planting the area up before Christmas. Thankfully, the new Pond Garden has established very well through its first season. The clouds of blossom in early spring were pure joy and the understory planting is starting to knit together, with a calm and unusual selection of perennials. The improvement of this part of the Garden is already being felt, and its design and materials are sitting well within its wider surroundings. It has been with great pride that I have watched our new Pond Garden being enjoyed by so many this year, as those returning to the Inn have enjoyed catching up with friends, possibly with a glass in hand, by the water’s edge.
We wanted to create the feeling of a green ‘oasis’ with the water as the focus.
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Sean Harkin Head Gardener
Blossom trees in spring: close up of Prunus x yeodensis
Armchair in the new Pond Garden
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Social Context of the Law: Prison Reform
SOCIAL CONTEXT OF THE LAW:
PRISON REFORM From a panel discussion delivered via webinar on 2 February 2021 between the Rev’d Jonathan Aitken and Chris Daw QC, moderated by Master Libby Purves.
Libby Purves: Our two speakers this evening have experience of prison from every possible side. Jonathan Aitken has been an MP and a cabinet minister and has himself served time. He has authored reports for the Centre for Social Justice on prison reform, and now Jonathan is a prison chaplain at Pentonville and honorary chaplain to Christians in government. Chris Daw QC is the author of Justice on Trial, a book laying out where we fail, and have been failing for many years, in prison policy. He is a leading criminal defence barrister and has looked into the faces of people most of us would shy away from and has listened to arguments in real life which would raise eyebrows and disbelief if they turned up in a television play. Sir, the floor is yours.
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Chris Daw: For me, our criminal justice system, and the way we deal with criminal acts and criminal activity as a society, is not only a very important part of our civil society, but it is also probably the one that we get the most wrong. When I go to court, as a lawyer I am duty-bound to do the best I can for my clients, to follow my instructions, and to assist the court and the administration of justice, but time and again I asked myself, “What’s the point of this case?” My book was intended to put justice on trial. I start the book by talking about the history of crime and punishment. One of the things that marked out systems of justice in early societies was that moralistic and religious view that punishment and vengeance should be an intrinsic aim. And sadly, those core themes of vengeance and punishment have pervaded almost every system of justice ever since. And they still do, in the sense that we have seen in this country over the last two or three decades an enormous increase in the use of imprisonment, in particular the length of sentences and the number of prisoners. And much of that has been in response to public demand for vengeance and punishment for offenders, particularly violent offenders, but also drug offenders. So, I begin the book properly with the subject of prison. And the conclusion I have come to about prisons, having travelled and researched the subject in some detail, is that they are almost entirely unfit for purpose. If the purpose of the criminal justice system is to reduce the amount of crime, to reduce the amount of repeat offending by those who commit crimes, then prison is diametrically opposite to policy and strategy that you would use if you were applying the evidence of what works and what does not work. And that is even if you set aside the inhumane way so many in prisoners all over the world are treated.
The conclusion I have come to about prisons, having travelled and researched the subject in some detail, is that they are almost entirely unfit for purpose. If the purpose of the criminal justice system is to reduce the amount of crime, to reduce the amount of repeat offending by those who commit crimes, then prison is diametrically opposite to policy and strategy that you would use if you were applying the evidence of what works and what does not work. Prisons just do not work. But another thing that does not work is drug prohibition. Today, millions and millions of people all over the world consume drugs of one kind or other. And it is only really in the last 50 years or so that we have begun to treat that activity as one of the most important elements of our criminal justice system, and one of the most important sources of prisoners for the prison system. All I have ever seen across all that criminal justice enforcement activity, and all those prosecutions, is a dramatic increase in drug consumption, a reduction in the cost of drugs on the street, and an enormous increase in drug-related violence and murder – all of it, in my conclusion, a result of the prohibition that we have engaged in, and the enforcement and lengthy prison sentences for drug offences. I have no doubt whatsoever, based on the evidence, that prohibition of drugs is damaging and wrong for our society. The final two topics are kind of interlinked. The first of these is that one of the chapters of the book is called Why Children Are Never Criminals. I have no doubt that the way we treat young people who become embroiled in our criminal justice system is counterproductive – in the sense that it actually increases criminality over the long term. I strongly believe that it breaches the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and that we treat our children in the criminal justice system in this country in a way that is inhumane, and contrary therefore to international law. We must do something radically different and stop criminalising children. The biggest mistake we make is in categorising people as either good or evil, rather than looking at why acts are committed, and what could be done in the long term to reduce the amount of crime in our society. By having this binary analysis of individuals, we contribute to the never-ending cycle of criminality by a certain group of people, most of whom have been severely damaged in their childhood and severely damaged by addiction and mental health problems.
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Treasury
That is why we need to radically reform our system and that is what we are doing so badly at the moment. That is why almost everything we do and think about crime and punishment is wrong.
Now, should we be keen on reform? You bet we should be. Because our jails are getting fuller by the day. One of the most heart-breaking parts of my job right now goes round a phrase, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” There are people who, this time last year, were arrested and charged; they got a trial within three months, and now they are lucky if they get a trial within a year. And sometimes, 18 months, 2 years. And the heartbreak is that the system is really letting them down badly.
LP: You need a prison policy which is non-political, because political prison policies are always a disaster. Is that what I have read from your writing? CD: I fully accept that much of what I say, particularly the advocacy around the massive reduction in the use of imprisonment, the decriminalisation, legalisation and licensing of drugs, are things that are not broadly popular with the voting public. And politicians know that, and that is why we had Priti Patel and Boris Johnson at the last election campaigning for increasing the use of prison, reducing the amount of remission and licence time that people will be given at the end of their sentences, and coming out strongly against any liberalisation of drug policy. People on the whole vote for very simple messages. So, it’s one of those cases where democracy in my view does not really work. LP: Let us turn now to the Rev’d Jonathan Aitken. Jonathan Aitken: I begin by saying that I am a fan of Chris Daw. I reviewed his book, and gave it a pretty favourable review, because it is a very original contribution to the debate we’re having, which is really, “Whither the future of criminal justice?” I think that where things go wrong a bit with Chris, is there was rather a flamboyant sentence: “The whole system is unfit for purpose and it achieves almost nothing.” Whether we like it or not, there are some people in jails who the general public do need to be protected from. There are some people who are evil: child molesters and murderers on a big scale, men of dangerous violence. So, the protection of the public is one good purpose for prison.
Whether we like it or not, there are some people in jails who the general public do need to be protected from. There are some people who are evil: child molesters and murderers on a big scale, men of dangerous violence. So, the protection of the public is one good purpose for prison. The second one, I am old-fashioned enough to think some people actually do need to be punished. The state does need to have a system where it has some punishments. It may not always be imprisonment – I agree we send far too many people to prison – but that is a purpose which is fulfilled. The third purpose, which our Victorian ancestors would have been big on, was the rehabilitation of prisoners. And there we fail as a society extremely badly. We are getting better at it, but we are not very good at it. Roughly speaking, out of every seven people who walk out of a prison, six or seven of them will be back within two or three years, because they have not been rehabilitated. Not entirely their fault sometimes – sometimes it is – but we fail badly on the rehabilitation of prisoners.
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I do think our courts, our juries, our judges are fair – it is not a corrupt system. Actually, there are a lot of good probation officers, good prison officers. But there are big, big failures. I am for democracy; you should persuade people. That is what being in a democratic country means. And I would like to persuade people that our drug laws really are in rotten, lousy shape, and we could do them much better. I think to a large extent, possession of small quantities of marijuana, at least, is now hardly a criminal offence. But come to the big stuff, I think instead of this mega-criminalised system we actually need a legal system to do with drugs: penalising people in various ways, licensing quantities of drugs. I think one place I can agree with Chris is that our drug laws are not fit for purpose and need a massive and courageous reform. The criminal justice system is a patchwork quilt of good things and bad things. But at the end of the day, the criminal justice system is partly broke, and it needs a lot of fixing. LP: Do you believe that people are persuadable that prisons should be changed, that prisons should be better, it should be the kind of educative, rehabilitative, good, reforming prisons? I mean it is a moral and a Christian argument, correct? JA: Well, there are no votes in prisons or prisoners so it can be quite a tough sell. However, there are a lot of polls around which say something like, the public are not that in favour of so many prison sentences being handed out; but on the other hand, maybe there should be, because the alternatives to imprisonment are so ineffective. The probation system is creaking at the seams. So, a focus on alternatives to prison, punishing alternatives to prison in many cases, is an area which needs reform. LP: I would just like to return to Chris Daw with that point about alternatives, because in your book, the alternatives excited me a great deal. Can you give us just a very quick sketch of what an alternative might be? Are we talking Norway, are we talking beyond Norway, how would it be? CD: I think it is beyond Norway. There is this residual group of people who are violent and dangerous, whether they be sexual offenders, or violent in other ways. But they represent a very small proportion of the total 82,000 or so prison population, of which 69 per cent are non-violent. So that residual group of maybe 15 per cent or so or 20 per cent, it is difficult to be precise, but that number is relatively small – and there may be reasons why some others would need to be in prison anyway. So, what do you do with them? What do you do with people who, if you let them on the street, might indeed attack someone, physically or sexually or otherwise, in a violent attack? My position is that there is only really one form of criminal justice process for the most serious offenders that works, and that is to normalise their life in a custodial environment. The reason why we have such high levels of recidivism when people leave prison is that they come from an utterly alien environment and have no coping mechanisms for the world that faces them on the outside.
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Social Context of the Law: Prison Reform
Yes, you have to have a perimeter to contain certain individuals. You don’t have to have a 50ft-high Victorian red-brick wall or a massive concrete wall. There are all manner of ways in which perimeters can be less obvious, but for the people inside, you need to normalise their existence so that when they walk out of the door or the gate to the outside world, it is actually not that different to what they’ve left behind.
So, we can use technology in a really creative way that actually makes things fairer and better for the individual but, most importantly, improves the outcomes. Because that is what really matters; it’s that they do not reoffend, and they do not go back to prison. That matters more than anything to the whole of our society.
So, you have still protected the public from them, because you have kept them contained – which Norwegian prisons largely do. Although the Norwegian model is not perfect, Norwegian prisons normalise the existence of prisoners. They allow families to come in sometimes to spend the weekend. They allow much freer access of people to education and work, and the sorts of things that people are going to have to do if they are ever going to get out of that revolving door of criminal justice. And that is how I see we do it – let people live in ordinary living conditions, live their lives, study, work and engage with their families in secure conditions as normally as possible. That in my view, in the end, is what will reduce recidivism and reduce crime in our society. LP: You suggest in your book, tracking technology is one of the ways that we can do this, because it is possible to know where anybody is at any given moment. Has all this technology come on far enough for that to be reasonable? CD: It has. When I made the series for the BBC last year, I filmed some of this technology, much of which originates in China. And for the general public, it is incredibly frightening, because they can use facial recognition, they can use all manner of tracking, to track entire towns and cities at once, to know exactly where anybody is all the time, and that would be awful to apply to a society.
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But when you think about the alternative between being in the sorts of prisons that we have in Strangeways and all of those large Victorian institutions – compare being in there on a wing with having to carry a phone, having to have a facial recognition system in your house to make sure you are there, and you are not leaving. Would you rather be in prison as we know it, or virtually imprisoned in your own home and able to go to work, because, with facial recognition and iris scanning and all this technology, you can make sure that people are where they say they will be.
When you think about the alternative between being in the sorts of prisons that we have in Strangeways and all of those large Victorian institutions – compare being in there on a wing with having to carry a phone, having to have a facial recognition system in your house to make sure you are there, and you are not leaving. Would you rather be in prison as we know it, or virtually imprisoned in your own home.
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LP: Jonathan, can you imagine this virtual tracking being a replacement for at least most non-violent offenders? Would that be something you would welcome? JA: Yes, I do think that we could go an awful long way with new technology to get improved outcomes. And I could not agree more that by just banging people up there is no rehabilitation at all. If you had the right kind of technology and proper forms of rehabilitation, it would be a big improvement. But we cannot just leave money out of this. Some of these reforms are very expensive, and the Treasury says, “Well, show us something that works.” And a lot of these things have to be tested for some time before they work, and quite a few of them do not work very well. LP: I just want to ask each of you a question about each other. Jonathan, are you beginning to be converted to Chris’s idea of knocking out the entire concept of prison as prison? JA: I do not think honestly you can do that. I do believe punishment, sometimes by imprisonment, for the protection of the public, is right. But, that said, this debate shows Chris and I are not at some huge distance. If he and I were in charge of the justice system, I think we would agree on a good few reforms. LP: Chris, is there any point unless we try to have a root-and-branch reform of our whole approach, from democracy outwards? CD: Why did I choose such extreme titles for my chapters as Let’s Close All Prisons? It was not because I think we are ever going to do that. It is by saying that that you start to make people think that we’re doing something completely wrong. And frankly, I would be more than happy for any progress on this issue because we are seeing very little at the moment. LP: Thank you, Jonathan Aitken and Chris Daw. Libby Purves OBE The Rev’d Jonathan Aitken Chris Daw QC Lincoln House Chambers For the full video recording of this discussion: innertemple.org.uk/prisonreform
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF KHUSHWANT SINGH Barrister, diplomat, editor, novelist, poet, philosopher and columnist; the Archive Assistant, Ayah Al-Rawni, revisits the life of one of the most dynamic figures in modern India.
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Khushwant Singh in his residence in New Delhi, October 1995 © Photo by Sondeep Shankar/Getty Images
Khushwant Singh was born into an affluent Sikh family in the Punjab, just a few years after the decision was announced to move the capital of the British Raj from Calcutta to Delhi. With preparations taking place to build a new capital city, his father, who worked in construction, moved to Delhi with most of the family, while Khushwant remained in the village of Hadali with his grandmother. As was custom in his village, there was no record of his actual birthday, but Khushwant was later informed that he was born in the summer months, a year into the First World War. He gave himself the birthday 15 August 1915. Khushwant and his grandmother eventually joined the rest of the family in Delhi, where he was enrolled in Modern School – the first private and coeducational school established in the city (although, according to Khushwant, with so few girls in the school, it was co-ed in name only.) It took Khushwant some time to adapt to city life and, unlike his classmates, he had no prior knowledge of English. Over time, English became one of his strongest subjects, which, in hindsight, is not surprising. He moved onto St Stephen’s College in Delhi, and then to Lahore Government College University, finally completing his education in London, where he chose to study in King’s College London – because to him, it sounded quite grand. He was admitted by The Inner Temple in 1934 and called in 1939. Although he did not discuss the Inn in any great detail, his autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice, describes his impressions of London, his experience as a student, and the lives of his cohort of Indian classmates. In his first year, he was quite reserved and did not have much to do in his spare time, but his network eventually grew, and he saw much more of England.
Following his return to India, he became a practising lawyer in the Lahore High Court. In 1947, with Indian independence on the horizon, there were reports of riots breaking out in parts of the Punjab. Although partition of India had been announced, Khushwant assumed the situation would quieten down and hoped he could remain in Lahore, where many of his close friends lived. But one morning, he saw smoke and heard gunfire. The riots were not just a story in the newspaper but a reality on his doorstep. On the advice of a British friend, who was head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in the Punjab, Khushwant left his house key with a Muslim friend, before he and his wife, carried what little they could to join the Hindu and Sikh refugees leaving for Delhi. On this journey, they passed Muslims headed in the opposite direction and witnessed the carnage that took place during partition, where nearly a million people were killed. They eventually made it to Delhi a day before Indian independence, and Khushwant was in the crowd watching Lord Mountbatten lower the Union Jack as the flag of India was raised. Coincidentally, Indian independence fell on the same ‘birthday’ he had made up for himself as a child. In his writing, he described the jubilant celebrations that felt surreal against the backdrop of sectarian violence, and which only came to an end after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, who Khushwant described as the “lone voice of sanity” in India. Immediately after Indian independence, Khushwant joined the India Foreign Service, working under Krishna Menon, a fellow barrister (Middle Temple) in London, and taking on other communications and media roles in Canada. In 1954, he went to Paris to join the UNESCO Department of Mass Communications for two years.
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The Extraordinary Life of Khushwant Singh
An image of New Delhi 1950s, a snapshot of post-colonial India, and shows where Khushwant lived after partition © Creative Commons
In 1956, he entered his historical fiction novel, Train to Pakistan, into a Grove Press competition under a pseudonym. (His former boss Krishna Menon was on the judging panel.) It told the story of a fictional village – not unlike Hadali – populated by both Muslims and Sikhs, who had lived alongside each other peacefully for hundreds of years, until this relative peace was disturbed during the partition of India. Train to Pakistan won Khushwant the competition, and to this day remains his most celebrated work of fiction. From that time, Khushwant had various writing engagements, including a book, History of the Sikhs in 1964, penning a piece for The New York Times Magazine to explain the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. He held visiting lectureships at the University of Oxford, Princeton University, the University of Rochester in New York, the University of Hawaii, and Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. While preparing for one of his courses on comparative religion in India, he was made aware of how little he knew about his country, so in 1969, when he was appointed editor-in-chief at The Illustrated Weekly of India, he concluded that if he did not know India well enough, it was likely that millions of his countrymen were just as ignorant of the land they called home. His objective as editor was to inform, amuse and provoke readers. In a TV interview in 1999, he was asked about his reputation as a “scotch-drinking, dirty, storytelling womaniser”, and whether that was an image he had conjured up himself, to which he responded:
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“Well, it is and it isn’t, it’s both, we are a nation of sanctimonious humbugs… we practise one thing and preach something quite different, and this riled me very much, and I said, I’ll cock the snook at this one, my entire society, if I drink I’ll drink right in the open and stand for drink as my birth right, if I like beautiful women, I’ll say that they are beautiful [to] their faces or write about them, describing them, and it immediately started upsetting people, and they said we mustn’t take this magazine, it is no longer a household magazine, this fellow [Khushwant] has made it vulgar, but on the other hand, it started shooting up and double, triple, four, five times the circulation… and did in fact establish me as a journalist and a writer of light gossip.” After leaving The Illustrated Weekly – he was asked to leave without notice a week before his scheduled retirement – he remained a public figure, serving as a member of parliament from 1980 to 1986. In 1984, despite being good friends with the prime minister at the time, Indira Ghandi, he returned his Padma Bhushan (the third-highest civilian award in India, awarded to him in 1974) in protest against the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by the Indian army.
He returned his Padma Bhushan (the third-highest civilian award in India, awarded to him in 1974) in protest against the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by the Indian army.
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He once candidly remarked, “I don’t hesitate to say that any old rubbish I write gets published.” Whether he considered it rubbish or not, his column, With Malice Towards One and All, presenting his honest and witty take on everything from current affairs, politics, religion, pop culture and travel, appeared in over 100 newspapers of India and was one of the most widely read columns in the country. Although his political opinions were sometimes considered controversial, he kept people reading and continued to write and publish works until the age of 98. Critical, self-deprecating, honest, open, controversial, a proud Sikh and staunch secularist, he was a member of the establishment who never shied away from challenging it. He had a wide and diverse network of friends and acquaintances and was a mentor and inspiration to a generation of writers and thinkers. He stood witness to key moments in India’s history and, by the same token, the trajectory of 20thcentury India shaped the course of his life and career. His novel Train to Pakistan was adapted to the theatre and big screen. In 2014, to celebrate 80 years after his admission to King’s College, he was awarded a fellowship of the college in recognition of his achievements in literature and journalism. The Khushwant Singh Literary Festival takes place in London to bring people together to discuss his writing and ideas. Khushwant died in his home in 2014 at the age of 99. Following his wishes to be “reunited with his roots”, his ashes were laid in the village of his birth, Hadali, Pakistan.
An image of New Delhi 1950s, a snapshot of post-colonial India, and shows where Khushwant lived after partition © Creative Commons
Ayah Al-Rawni Archive Assistant
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Unfurling of National Flag by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru at Red Fort, Delhi © Google Arts and Culture, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library New Delhi, India
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Gilds and Things: Keeping the Peace in 10th-Century London
GILDS AND THINGS: KEEPING THE PEACE IN 10TH-CENTURY LONDON Dr Rory Naismith (Lecturer in the History of England before the Norman Conquest in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College). Webinar on Tuesday 4 May 2021.
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‘Harley Psalter’ (British Library Harley MS 603, f. 59v), a copy of the Psalms made at Canterbury Cathedral in the early 11th century
If I were speaking to you in person, we would be situated in the pleasant environs of the Temple Church and the law courts. We would be roughly on the boundary of the City of London. Going back a little further, we would also be in what was a sort of no man’s land between the two centres of early medieval and Anglo-Saxon London. This was emphatically not the heart of a big city. But if we were to lift our gaze and look to the west, we would have looked towards Lundenwic: a new urban settlement that emerged in the seventh century, situated in the area between Trafalgar Square and Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Relative to other settlements of the day, Lundenwic was a major concentration of population, production and trade. It was more a permanent market than a town as we would understand it in institutional terms. And there’s little evidence that it had much of a sort of communal character or identity. Still, there were precious few places like it anywhere in northern Europe, and it was probably one of the biggest permanent or semi-permanent settlements anywhere in Britain.
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Lundenwic flourished between the seventh and ninth centuries. To trace what happened next, we would need to cast our mind’s eye towards the formidable walls of Roman Londinium. In the middle and later years of the ninth century, people started to gravitate into the Roman city once again, possibly under the pressure of Viking attacks, possibly as part of a kind of gradual spreading out and eastward shuffle of Lundenwic. There is a key figure who comes into play at this point: Alfred the Great. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that, in 886, Alfred came to London, refurbished its defences, and used it as a base for a ceremonial submission of all the English who were not subject to the Vikings, before he entrusted it to Ethelred, who was the leader of the Mercians, under Alfred’s overlordship. Alfred did not rebuild London from scratch, but in his time, it did start to develop a much stronger unitary identity, best represented by the involvement of the city’s population in military campaigns against the Vikings.
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In time, it would become a great city, growing rapidly to become a national focal point of military and financial affairs in the decades around the first millennium. The reign of the King who was ruling at this point, Ethelred II (978–1016), is not remembered as a period of particular glory and victory, but for London it was when things really came together, making it the leading military, economic and political centre of the whole kingdom. But its status in the late ninth and most of the tenth century needs to be kept in perspective. London was not at this point any larger or more important than cities such as Canterbury, Chester, Winchester and York.
The scenario the Peace Gild seemed to picture is that someone realised that they had been the victim of a theft and immediately raised the alarm with their neighbours, there being no independent police force to pursue wrongdoers at this point. A posse will then be put together to follow the tracks of the thief. Violence was part and parcel of this self-driven policing. Indeed, the Peace Gild encouraged and condoned it, offering a bounty of 12 pence to whoever actually killed the thief. One of the passage added at the end suggests that Londoners decided to include allowance for cases where guilt was not immediately apparent and could not be ascertained ‘‘on hrædinge’, literally in haste.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that, in 886, Alfred came to London, refurbished its defences, and used it as a base for a ceremonial submission of all the English who were not subject to the Vikings, before he entrusted it to Ethelred, who was the leader of the Mercians, under Alfred’s overlordship. Alfred did not rebuild London from scratch, but in his time, it did start to develop a much stronger unitary identity, best represented by the involvement of the city’s population in military campaigns against the Vikings. The tenth century was crucial in shaping London as an urban community, although paradoxically the urban community was very much also a rural community at this point. It was not just people who lived in the city who identified with it, and a crucial document in showing this process is sometimes known as the Peace Gild of London, or VI Athelstan, meaning that it was identified as the sixth law code of King Athelstan’s reign, which ran from 924 to 939. Although this was not actually a set of laws issued by the King, it was addressed to him. What we see in this text is a two-way process of lawmaking. Local groups took responsibility for writing up and implementing their own customs in dialogue with the King. In London, there was a close convergence of royal and local interests. The prime focus of the Peace Gild was theft, a particularly threatening crime in Anglo-Saxon law. Most offences, including murder, crippling injury, rape and property damage, could be settled with compensation to the victim or their family. But payment of compensation and fines depended on knowing who had committed the crime and being able to bring them to justice. That was why theft was so problematic. By definition, it meant the offender got away or at least tried to, and there was no one to challenge or pay up. The Peace Gild and other laws of the same period say that thieves who were caught in the act could expect death, their property being confiscated to pay for the lost goods, and then the surplus split between the thief’s wife – assuming she was not complicit – the King and the gild itself.
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The prime focus of the Peace Gild was theft, a particularly threatening crime in Anglo-Saxon law. Most offences, including murder, crippling injury, rape and property damage, could be settled with compensation to the victim or their family. But payment of compensation and fines depended on knowing who had committed the crime and being able to bring them to justice. That was why theft was so problematic. Precious little is known about Anglo-Saxon trials for criminal offences such as theft. The problem is that there is a deep cleavage between our two main sources for Anglo-Saxon law: law codes, like the Peace Gild statutes, and then narratives of actual cases. Nonetheless, a little can be surmised about what went on in trials. First, there were no dedicated professional courts, judges or lawyers. Instead, cases were heard before assemblies of free notable people from the surrounding area. The process varied depending on the case, as well as on the status of the parties involved. Often the real issue was to decide which of the disputants was ‘closer to the oath’, meaning that they could proceed to make formal sworn assertion of the truth of their version of events, supported by a range of character witnesses. If the accuser was closer to the oath, then the accused was guilty, and that was that. If the accused were closer to the oath, they could proceed to what was called an oath of exculpation, which was basically a formal proclamation of innocence. However, accounts of disputes show that a settlement was usually reached before, or immediately after, the oath, meaning that the loser did not suffer the full impact of their defeat. Rather, the point was to arrive at a solution everyone could live with. But that did leave to one side another category of case, where the question was more about the veracity of what the defendant claimed. Contemporaries could and did use visual, material evidence if any presented itself. But more often than not, there was nothing like this to go on. In such circumstances, the assembled company would turn to what were called ‘ordeals’. These were physical tests designed to invoke a supernatural decision on guilt or innocence. Things like picking up a heated rod of iron and then waiting a few days to see whether the wound festered or healed. If it healed, God favoured the person, and they could go free. If it became infected, the person was judged guilty. Interestingly, they did not usually suffer execution at this point, even for a crime that would normally incur it.
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Gilds and Things: Keeping the Peace in 10th-Century London
The Peace Gild statutes do not actually say that suspected thieves were subject to an ordeal. The silence on legal arrangements beyond the right to pursue, detain and punish is an obvious missing link in the Peace Gild. There must already have been systems in place for dealing with all the other necessities and processes that the statutes imply. The Gild itself could have constituted a kind of assembly, where these cases might be heard. In other words, it was also its own court. It was both police and court. But this leads us to the question of what kind of entity the Peace Gild was and what kind of city it was based in.
The Peace Gild stands apart from livery companies in several other ways. The City guilds were, at least historically, jealous of membership and the privileges that went with it, including the citizenship of London. Conversely, the Peace Gild was a surprisingly open body. The main requirement of membership seems to have been a willingness to participate in keeping the peace. There was also an annual subscription of four pence, but this could be waived for poor widows, which is important as evidence that there were, or at least could be, women who joined in their own right and served as members of the organisation. This is not to say that the Peace Gild was an egalitarian body. But it was unusual in bringing together a socially diverse body of people, united, it seems, in common legal cause and suspicion of their neighbours.
The Peace Gild statutes do not actually say that suspected thieves were subject to an ordeal. The silence on legal arrangements beyond the right to pursue, detain and punish is an obvious missing link in the Peace Gild. There must already have been systems in place for dealing with all the other necessities and processes that the statutes imply. The Gild itself could have constituted a kind of assembly, where these cases might be heard. A
The first thing to emphasise is that there was technically no one Peace Gild. The statutes refer to the organisation in the plural – Peace Gilds – though manifestly these operated as a single whole. I am using the spelling ‘gild’ to try and emphasise distance from the later medieval and modern guilds. The 10th century organisations are very different: they have got nothing to do with occupations and trades; they are much more fluid, personal and (in the case of some other gilds) religious organisations.
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The London Peace Gild can be set alongside lots of other voluntary organisations, usually sworn or pledged, that existed across early medieval Europe, based on people who lived in or near the same city, or who shared a connection to the same saint or church, for example. These groups had diverse devotional, administrative, economic and even military functions, and could easily slide from one of these to another, just as they could move from informal status to formal as a political and legal authority, which indeed was what the Peace Gild seemed to be doing. Within England, the Peace Gild and its status form part of a recognisable tradition of Anglo-Saxon gilds. The word ‘gild’ was originally to do with money and paying, and it probably refers to the members paying into a common fund for mutual protection and conviviality. In the first record of gilds in Anglo-Saxon England, around the year 700, this was precisely the role they played. This law code says that gild members were ‘payers’, perhaps meaning people who stepped in as a kind of substitute or supplementary family in the financial aspect of legal disputes.By the 9th century, gilds were referred to as witnessing land transactions in Kent. So, they clearly had a degree of stability by that time. Gilds in early medieval England also had an important religious flavour to them. They structured prayer and charity, and crucially also funerals of members. Religious devotions are less prominent in the Peace Gild statutes, but they are there. The leftovers of gild feasts were to be distributed to the Christian poor, and on the death of a gild member, all were to offer a loaf of bread or pay for a priest to say 50 psalms.
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Dr Rory Naismith
Gilds in early medieval England also had an important religious flavour to them. They structured prayer and charity, and crucially also funerals of members. Religious devotions are less prominent in the Peace Gild statutes, but they are there. The leftovers of gild feasts were to be distributed to the Christian poor, and on the death of a gild member, all were to offer a loaf of bread or pay for a priest to say 50 psalms. The Peace Gild of London can be compared most closely to four other English gilds that are known from sets of statutes written in the 10th and early 11th centuries. Two of these come from rural settings, and the others concerned people who live around the urban focal points of Cambridge and Exeter. They do not necessarily reflect the highest elite but certainly those with a significant amount of disposable income. The Cambridge gild is explicitly framed as a gild of ‘thegns’, a thegn at this point being sort of like a knight or member of the gentry in the later Middle Ages – people who were on the cusp of the elite. What then stands out as distinct about London’s Peace Gild? Compared to the others, it comes off as being unusually large and unusually focused on legal and violent matters. The Peace Gild statutes were also the longest set of gild regulations from early medieval England and the only ones that clearly received additions after first drafting. The Peace Gild was also distinct in how its statutes were preserved, being regarded by later readers as part of the corpus of law codes. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Peace Gild is exceptional in being such an elaborate and ambitious, yet also spontaneous, bottom-up organisation. In that respect, it tells us much about London and about how its character as a defined urban community was coming together and asserting itself in the eyes of the King, and against aggressors in the surrounding countryside.
the Peace Gild is exceptional in being such an elaborate and ambitious, yet also spontaneous, bottom-up organisation. In that respect, it tells us much about London and about how its character as a defined urban community was coming together and asserting itself in the eyes of the King, and against aggressors in the surrounding countryside. London’s Peace Gild may not have had an obvious or direct legacy, but a good argument can be made that parts of it survived to become core elements of the City’s governing infrastructure, some of which, not least the Court of Husting, still survive to this day. It can equally be looked at as a fascinating artefact of its own time, the tenth century. The Peace Gild leads us to think about the nature of the society that made it and all the laws and legal systems available for keeping the peace. If anything, keeping the peace comes across as a paramount concern, because it had to be done with a great deal of effort and design. It did not just mean absence of trouble; it meant active assertion to try and repress violence and disorder. We see in the Peace Gilds a reflection of the anxieties and potential of early medieval English society as a network of people and communities to claim their own legal jurisdiction under loose overall royal leadership. Londoners, in short, were already looking to their own resources for peace and protection. Dr Rory Naismith Lecturer in the History of England before the Norman Conquest, University of Cambridge, Fellow of Corpus Christi College For the full video recording of this lecture: innertemple.org.uk/peacegild
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The Absolute Ban on Assisted Dying and Lessons From Canada
THE ABSOLUTE BAN ON ASSISTED DYING AND LESSONS FROM CANADA From a lecture delivered by Dr Carmen Draghici (City, University of London) via webinar on 8 March 2021.
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The assisted suicide debate explores the law’s response to a human tragedy, perhaps best illustrated by the highprofile case of Mr Nicklinson, a locked-in syndrome sufferer asking for assistance to end what he perceived to be a painful, distressing and undignified life. The predicament of Mr Nicklinson and others in similar situations stemmed from the absolute prohibition of acts assisting a person in committing suicide. In England and Wales, the blanket ban is established in section 2(1) of the Suicide Act 1961, which makes “encouraging and assisting” another to commit suicide a criminal offence. The statute makes no provision for exceptions; however, the consent of the Director for Public Prosecutions (DPP) is required to institute criminal proceedings against assisters. The first legal challenge to the blanket ban heard by the House of Lords was brought in 2001 by Mrs Pretty, who wished to be assisted by her husband to travel to Dignitas in Switzerland without exposing him to the risk of being prosecuted. She complained that the DPP’s failure to grant her husband proleptic immunity from prosecution breached her rights under Articles 2, 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The House of Lords disagreed. Mrs Pretty then brought proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) (2002). In Strasbourg, her claims enjoyed moderate success. The Court recalled that personal autonomy is an important principle underlying article 8 ECHR guarantees, so much so that a person’s ability to conduct their life in a manner of their choosing includes the pursuit of activities perceived by others as physically or morally harmful for them, eg the refusal of life-sustaining treatment. Nevertheless, the restriction on article 8 resulting from the blanket ban on assisted dying was within the state’s margin of appreciation (which is wide in end-of-life decision-making) as well as proportionate to the aim pursued (protection of the vulnerable); the Court reasoned that there was flexibility for individual cases, in that the DPP’s consent to prosecution was required.
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The Purdy case (2009) lamented the insufficient clarity of section 2(4) of the Suicide Act as regards the DPP’s exercise of discretion to prosecute. On this occasion, the House of Lords accepted that the prohibition on assisted dying engaged article 8; that provision protects the right of terminally ill/ severely disabled people to decide when/how to die. It further accepted that it was impossible to anticipate how prosecutorial discretion will be exercised in assisted suicide cases. Therefore, the interference was not “in accordance with the law”. As a result of this judgment, in 2010, the DPP issued a Policy for Prosecutors in Respect of Cases of Encouraging or Assisting Suicide. Prosecution is, thus, less likely to be required in the presence of several factors: the victim had reached a voluntary, settled and informed decision; the suspect was motivated by compassion, had sought to dissuade the victim, and provided reluctant assistance; the acts were of minor assistance; and the suspect reported the suicide and cooperated with the police. The issue returned before the Supreme Court in 2014 with the Nicklinson case. Mr Nicklinson and his co-appellants claimed that section 2(1) of the Suicide Act was incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) and asked the court to issue a declaration to that effect. The Supreme Court majority disagreed, on the following grounds. First, in the absence of an alternative scheme at hand, it was impossible to say with confidence that a permissive scheme could satisfactorily protect the lives of vulnerable individuals who would feel themselves a burden to their families. Secondly, the legislative process was better placed to assess controversial and complex questions. Finally, parliament had to be afforded an opportunity to consider the matter in light of the case, as the issue was already before parliament.
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In 2017, the Conway case revived the matter in the courts. The case regarded a terminally ill patient still physically capable of the act of ending his life. Also, an alternative legislative scheme was put forward, based on a six-month prognosis and court authorisation. The appeal was dismissed in 2018 largely on two grounds. Parliament was better placed to assess such a highly contested policy issue and the conflicted evidence on the matter. Moreover, the Court of Appeal considered itself “restricted to considering the suitability of the precise scheme proposed” (which it found unpersuasive). This arguably distorted the ordinary scope of judicial review. Instead of a human rights scrutiny of the status quo, the proceedings took the form of an examination of a legislative proposal.
While both Supreme Courts recognised that self-determination encompasses the right not to choose life-at-all-costs over a minimum quality of life, recently the UK’s High Court and Court of Appeal have taken a regressive approach to the doctrinal underpinnings of the ban: the sanctity-of-life principle could justify an interference with privacy rights, being subsumed under the “protection of morals” aim contained in article 8(2) ECHR. Conway also attempted to rationalise the legality of withdrawal of life-saving treatment, which “allows causes present in the body to operate”, whereas assisted dying presupposes “introducing an external agency of death”. This is a variation of the largely discredited distinction between act and omission (killing as opposed to letting die).
In Canada, the evolution of the law on assisted suicide has followed a radically different trajectory. The starting point was a blanket prohibition similar to the one in force in England and Wales (section 241(b) of the Criminal Code). A first challenge to the prohibition was brought before the Canadian Supreme Court in the Rodriguez case in 1993. The Court found that the ban engaged several rights protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms 1982: section 7 protects everyone’s right to life, liberty and security of the person. The restriction was, however, found to be justified: first, by the difficulty in creating effective safeguards to prevent abuse; second, by the need to uphold respect for life and discourage those who might see themselves as a burden from committing suicide.
Recently the UK’s High Court and Court of Appeal have taken a regressive approach to the doctrinal underpinnings of the ban: the sanctity-of-life principle could justify an interference with privacy rights, being subsumed under the “protection of morals” aim contained in article 8(2) ECHR.
All this changed with the Carter case in 2015; the Canadian Supreme Court was prepared to find that the blanket ban amounted to an infringement of Charter rights of competent adults who clearly consent to the termination of life and have a grievous and irremediable medical condition, causing suffering that is intolerable to the individual. First, the ban constituted indirect deprivation of life, in that it forced some individuals to take their lives prematurely for fear they would be incapable of doing so when the suffering becomes intolerable. Secondly, the ban also amounted to a breach of the right to liberty; patients were unable to make decisions concerning bodily integrity and medical care, and individual response to a grievous condition is critical to one’s dignity and autonomy. Finally, the assisted dying ban constituted a breach of the right to security of the person because individuals were left to endure intolerable suffering. The infringement had a legitimate objective (protecting the vulnerable) but was overbroad: it caught individuals outside the class it intended to protect. It was also disproportionate to the objective: a permissive regime with proper safeguards could protect the vulnerable. The Court left the specific scheme of access to medical assistance in dying to parliament.
The debate in both jurisdictions revolved, however, around pragmatic concerns, the so-called ‘slippery slope’ argument. It was readily accepted in both courts that a permissive regime might induce certain individuals to commit suicide. The crux of the debate lies not in the existence of the ban, but in the complete absence of any opportunity for exceptional authorisation. The question was whether it is necessary to address vulnerability through a blanket ban and whose burden it was to prove that no lesser measures were adequate. According to Carter, the onus was on the government to justify the absolute prohibition. By contrast, British courts doubted the effectiveness of safeguards against error and abuse and expected litigants to provide a fully-fledged scheme.
In 2016, parliament amended the Criminal Code; the new section 241.2(1) allows medical assistance in dying for adults who suffer from a grievous and irremediable medical condition, make a voluntary request for assistance (with no external pressure), and give informed consent after being advised of available treatment/palliative care. The assessment of eligibility is entrusted to two medical professionals rather than the courts. Following a constitutional challenge in Quebec in Truchon (2019), parliament is due to amend the law further, removing the section 241.2(d) requirement that the patient’s natural death be “reasonably foreseeable”.
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The Absolute Ban on Assisted Dying and Lessons From Canada
The case-by-case retrospective prosecutorial assessment has often been invoked as evidence of proportionality. In Nicklinson, the Court indicated that the DPP practice comes close to tolerating assistance in dying. In Conway, the Court said that the “possibility of prosecution is not a high risk”. A similar permissive trend existed in Canada as a result of prosecutorial and judicial discretion. Consequently, administrative law has accepted assistance as morally/ legally permissible in certain circumstances. This negates the need for the absolute ban, since there is evidently room for departure. It also discredits the logical connection between the purpose and effects of the absolute prohibition. It further creates a conflict between primary legislation and prosecutorial practice. It is undesirable for courts to endorse a corrective tool going against the statute rather than inviting parliament to carve out a legislative exception; certainty of law is not well served by this approach. Finally, it contravenes the aim of the statute: the review of circumstances after the patient’s death offers less protection to the vulnerable.
Arguably, Canadian law better reconciles competing interests: on the one hand, the patient’s autonomy; on the other, societal concerns. First, ethical concerns over devaluing life: the Canadian compromise lies in a general prohibition mitigated by exceptional authorisation in limited circumstances and deferral of ethical judgment over sanctity versus quality of life to private opinion. As regards practical concerns over the protection of the vulnerable, the Canadian response was implementation of permissive legislation accompanied by safeguards against error and abuse; its credibility rests on the fact that doctors are already deemed able to assess competence to give consent to medical treatment (including withdrawal of life-saving treatment), and courts are deemed able to assess mental competence where in dispute.
The aforementioned litigation has also raised a fundamental constitutional question: how is the legal system structured to decide sensitive ethical matters? According to Carter, courts can determine compatibility with the Canadian Charter rights regardless of the subject matter. Conversely, the UK courts refused to issue section 4 declarations in respect of section 2 of the Suicide Act, either because the dispute was seen as non-justiciable or out of deference to parliamentary sovereignty. According to Pretty, a court is “not able to make ethical and moral decisions” because it is “not a legislative body”. In Nicklinson, consideration of sensitive issues of social policy and moral judgment were found to be better left to parliament. For several justices, the law might have been incompatible, but it was inappropriate for the Court to decide before giving parliament an opportunity to consider its position in light of the judgment. Only two justices were prepared to issue a section 4 declaration. The prevailing approach is not unproblematic. Most section 4 declarations have arisen and are likely to arise in morally sensitive areas. There is also no rule in the HRA that a section 4 declaration cannot be issued while the matter is before parliament. The highest courts’ legal opinion is, on the contrary, a welcome contribution to debates. Moreover, a formal record of incompatibility is appropriate, as the House of Lords held in Bellinger, although parliament had already announced its intention to change the law. Importantly, there is no rule in section 4 that a viable legislative scheme must be available before issuing a declaration. The exact remedy is left to parliament; courts only signal the incompatibility. If anything, for courts to choose the ‘correct’ alternative would be out of step with the separation of powers. Finally, the “margin of appreciation” left by Strasbourg authorities was arguably misconstrued in the UK as parliamentary discretion. Although the ECtHR found no consensus on end-of-life decision-making in Europe and hence allowed a wide margin of appreciation, domestic courts can go further. A section 4 declaration of incompatibility with the HRA is not precluded by Strasbourg’s acceptance of both blanket bans and permissive regimes as compatible with the Convention. As the House of Lords acknowledged in Re G (2008), incompatibility with the HRA can occur even where there is no breach of the ECHR at the international level; a stricter standard of review is applied by domestic courts. Domestically, the margin of appreciation left by Strasbourg is shared by all branches.
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The Canadian response was implementation of permissive legislation accompanied by safeguards against error and abuse; its credibility rests on the fact that doctors are already deemed able to assess competence to give consent to medical treatment (including withdrawal of life-saving treatment), and courts are deemed able to assess mental competence where in dispute. Canadian assisted dying law when compared to the UK has demonstrated both a superior substantive scheme and a better understanding of courts’ constitutional role in monitoring human rights compliance. A scheme based on prior authorisation (following medical assessment of eligibility for assistance) aligns assisted dying regulation with other areas of medical law. Medical law recognises competent adults’ right to refuse, or request the withdrawal of, lifesustaining treatment for no reason at all. It also accepts that prolonging life-sustaining treatment for children afflicted by extreme illnesses and patients in permanent vegetative state may not be in their best interests. The sanctity-oflife justification and the absolute bar on assisted dying are inconsistent with these principles. Exceptional authorisation of assisted dying also promotes the pre-eminence of selfdetermination over collective beliefs and paternalistic concerns; it ensures tolerance of different subjective views and individual choices. Finally, it offers humane assistance in ending prolonged suffering, preventing a distressing death or a premature and traumatic self-inflicted death. Overall, the Canadian experience demonstrated the profound role of courts in upholding human rights: where an issue affects a small sector of the population but with grave consequences, the courts can place it firmly on the legislative agenda. Dr Carmen Draghici Academic Fellow For the full version of the video recording: innertemple.co.uk/lectures
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
VALEDICTORY FOR HER HONOUR JUDGE KORNER CMG QC Master Deborah Taylor (Reader and Presiding Judge, Southwark Crown Court), The Rt Hon Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, Master Ryder and Master Joanna Korner, 30 July 2021. Judge Taylor: Today, Southwark Crown Court says farewell to Her Honour Judge Korner, with our very best wishes for her future as a judge of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, her second home. Judge Korner has had a long and distinguished career, both at the Bar and as a judge in the English and international courts. She was appointed silk in 1993 and in 2004 was made a CMG, a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, for services to international criminal law. I confess, that I had to look up CMG, not having one myself, obviously. I found out that the order is known in the civil service as ‘Call me God’, Mr Ryder if only we had known, all that time lost. But perhaps better not as even for someone as grounded as Judge Korner it might have gone to her head. During her career at the Criminal Bar, Judge Korner’s practice was in serious crime; in between three stints at The Hague, she was Senior Prosecuting Counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal, for the former Yugoslavia, in cases involving genocide. Between 2004 and 2005, she was the Chief Prosecutor in the Tribunal for Bosnia and Herzegovina. When Judge Korner was appointed as Circuit judge in 2012, initially she sat at Snaresbrook. However, using transferable skills, no doubt gained from her experience of war crimes tribunals and personifying those current buzzwords ‘agile’ and ‘flexible’, Judge Korner took her opportunity, tunnelled her way out and came to Southwark – the pockets of her judicial robe still filled with the soil of north-east London. The work here at Southwark, whilst having international elements, has been rather different from her previous diet; but Judge Korner has shown her ability to deal with all seven deadly sins, and taken it in her stride, using skills honed dealing with crimes of genocide committed with all manner of violence and weapons of war, tackling multimillionpound frauds committed with the tap of a finger on a computer key or with finely forged financial instruments. My own first meeting with Judge Korner was a virtual one, in the pre-digital days before virtual was a thing; it was in the pages of a book. In 1998, Trevor Grove wrote The Juryman’s Tale, about his experience as foreman of a jury in a kidnapping case at the Central Criminal Court. Joanna Korner, Queen’s Counsel, as she then was, was prosecuting counsel, and the book gives us a snapshot of her at that time. Unsurprisingly, Mr Grove and his jury had nothing but praise for her, as was apparent from his description. Judge Korner must have a portrait in the attic, as in over 20 years, little has changed. She is still as he described her, tall and elegant, clever and intelligible, with the pre-Downton Abbey unfashionably posh voice, which he thought might put the jury off but did not.
Judge Korner goes to The Hague with an outstanding international reputation; around the world, advocates and judges in many jurisdictions have benefited over the years from training organised or delivered by Judge Korner in her work as Head of the International Faculty of the Advocacy Training Council, between 2005 and 2011, and as International Course Director of the Judicial College, between 2014 and 2017, in addition to her work on behalf of the Inner Temple. Unfortunately, the judges here at Southwark proved a step too far even for Judge Korner, so we totter on, wayward and untrained, lacking the benefits of her expertise. Unlike most valedictories, today does not mark the end of a career or a retirement but a new beginning. Judge Korner has been an exemplary judge at Southwark. It has been said that she has been known to express a view from time to time, and even occasionally a strong view; but we will all miss her straight talking, tempered always by great experience and her boundless good humour. The Hague lost a doughty and skilful prosecutor but will now regain a judge of outstanding quality. On behalf of all your fellow judges here at Southwark, we wish you every happiness in the sure knowledge of your success. Lord Justice Haddon-Cave: As the Recorder of Westminster has just elegantly outlined, Judge Korner has had a long and distinguished career at the Bar and as a judge in the English and international courts. At a time when most judges would be hanging up their wigs and getting out the box sets of season six and seven of Line of Duty to try and work out what really happened, Judge Korner is about to embark on a fifth decade of her career in the law. She is leaving us to take up her new and important role as a judge of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This has always seemed her destiny; it is as if the past four decades have been merely a dress rehearsal for the heavy mantle in The Hague which she is about to wear. Her Excellency Judge Joanna Korner CMG QC, as she now is, has a fine ring about it, does it not? This is because Joanna Korner is excellent. She is an excellent judge, an excellent lawyer, an excellent person of great integrity and judgment, and she has been an excellent friend and colleague to many of us here today. Judge Korner will make a very fine ambassador for this country and for the law.
Judge Korner is about to embark on a fifth decade of her career in the law. She is leaving us to take up her new and important role as a judge of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This has always seemed her destiny; it is as if the past four decades have been merely a dress rehearsal for the heavy mantle in The Hague which she is about to wear. 131
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Valedictory for Her Honour Judge Korner CMG QC
Some of you will know that Judge Korner has already had one global career, as an international advocacy trainer; some of us have had the privilege of accompanying her on advocacy training trips abroad. What marked these trips was the meticulous preparation that she put into them; she invariably did the heavy lifting, assembling the team, preparing the court’s materials, arranging the timetable, whilst the rest of us were trying to decide which novels to pack.
my plausible and persuasive submissions on a rather novel point of law. The sceptical impression moved – and none too slowly – through initial suspicion to disbelief and outright incredulity. As Judge Korner looked quizzically on – her head shaking almost imperceptibly – this was the first time that I felt that her judicial opinion of my performance reflected Dr Johnson’s adage about a dog walking on its hind legs: “It is not done well, but it is astonishing that it is done at all.”
She also had a great sense of fun. I recall once in Rome after a particularly gruelling day’s training, she said, “Why don’t we go to Harry’s Bar and have James Bond cocktails?” We did. Several. In Mauritius, she apparently caused a sensation at the races at Port Louis, by putting a bet on a rank outsider, saying loudly in her immaculate diction, “The horse is bound to win.” It did.
With the impact of her facial expressions so powerful, verbal expression is largely unnecessary. Einstein believed that the entirety of the laws of physics could be reduced to a single equation. Judge Korner has proved able to apply the entire law of England and Wales to a single verbal expression. It is not so much a linguistic as a musical phrase. However complicated the submission, however challenging the question, it is despatched with a single “AHHHMMM”.
I have lost count of the number of times on my own trips abroad when, on learning that I was a lawyer from England, I have been asked, “Do you know Joanna Korner?” Judge Korner has had the privilege of spending the last few years sitting in Southwark, one of the finest courts in the land, with some of the finest judges in the land. It has been a perfect finishing school in preparation of her onerous duties at The Hague. Everyone can take pride in her achievement; we hope Judge Korner will think fondly of us, even though we have been merely but a speed bump in her illustrious career. We now bid her au revoir and wish her every success as she embarks on this important new chapter of her career.
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Mr Ryder: My Lady, it is a singular honour to respond on behalf of the Bar at this valedictory for HHJ Korner. Looking at the current assembly, only a fool would fail to observe that all institutions are enlivened by the presence of strong, characterful women. The 1980s Conservative Party by Thatcher. The Democratic Party by Hilary. The Simpsons by Marge. The Southwark Crown Court by Korner. The charisma of the latter and her conduct of trials are characterised by three principal features: presence; her unusually communicative facial expressions; and her singular, unique manner of speech. The presence is instantly felt. To stand on the Staten Island of counsel’s row or the Devil’s Island of the dock and witness the Korner liner emerging from the mists of the judicial corridor is to be awestruck by the majestic profile, stateliness of carriage and an indefinable sense of will. As was once said of Dame Edith Sitwell, it was like watching the “high alter on the move”. The judicial seat is taken. The head tilted back. The gaze directed from far above but down and along the patrician nose. At this point, who could not recall the words of the Doors’ Jim Morrison, “The future is uncertain, but the end is surely near”? Despite this, it should not be thought that Judge Korner has any sense of loftiness or hauteur. She applies the strongest sense self-criticism in her tireless efforts to improve on perfection. This is best illustrated by a quotation from a recent interview conducted by an organisation called ATLAS. Her Excellency was asked, “What are some of the challenges that you’ve faced, and how have you tackled them?” She mentioned one or two of the extraordinarily daunting obstacles she has had to overcome in her daily life. Obstacles that would readily defeat all but the strongest characters: the overwhelming difficulty in finding bridge partners of sufficient skill; the exhausting need to remain alert to prevent ill-informed waiters putting ice into a single malt, and then said, “Another learning curve has been the development of humility.” Whilst the presence is awesome and majestic, the mannerisms – like the mind that informs them – are subtle. They comprise facial and verbal expressions. They are so subtle that she needs only one of each. The facial expression is one of scepticism. It is varied solely by its intensity. From personal experience in a relatively recent fraud trial, I can attest that it was observed in all its shades during what I hoped to be 132
It is of course easy to satirise so colourful, life-enhancing and loveable a character. But it should not be at the cost of Judge Korner’s defining characteristics and achievements. Whilst obviously humour, conviviality and companion-ability are ever apparent, limitless kindness, generosity and indefatigable energy in helping and encouraging others are the most fundamental. She has given enormous amounts of her time and applied inexhaustible energy to advocacy training domestically and internationally. The former offers encouragement and support to developing members of the profession here; the latter greatly enhances its reputation abroad. Her work and her courageous and uncompromising reports regarding the effective and efficient trial of war criminals in post-conflict states in southern and eastern Europe have contributed greatly to the establishment of human rights and democratic values there. Her achievements are simply extraordinary, and they will continue in her new role. It is a source of professional and national pride. We wish her every success and happiness in this fondest of farewells.
Her work and her courageous and uncompromising reports regarding the effective and efficient trial of war criminals in post-conflict states in southern and eastern Europe have contributed greatly to the establishment of human rights and democratic values there. Her achievements are simply extraordinary, and they will continue in her new role. It is a source of professional and national pride. Judge Korner: I do not know what to say after that, but I will come back to Mr Ryder. Pre-COVID-19, we have listened, many of us, to a number of these valedictories. My overwhelming impression of them is that the leaving judge, knowing that this is his or her last chance to opine from the bench with a captive audience, decides to rehearse his or her career from the time of pupillage, via great cases of the Bar (I have not got any great cases); followed by a rehearsal of great cases on the bench (well, I have not had any of those either); and finally ends by taking a sideswipe at in, no particular order, the CPS, HMCTS, the MOJ, at the end of their oration. Well, I am not going to do any of that, so I hope that this will be short. I want to start with apologies. First, the court staff here who have the unenviable task of managing the running of this building, namely Janine and Alison. I just want both of them to know that my litany of complaints about the
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heat in whichever court I was sitting simply had the best interests of the staff at heart and of course counsel and the jury. The fact that I caused everybody to come down with severe colds is merely a by-product of that desire.
To Maura (McGowan): whose keenness on bridge equals Emma, and so for anybody looking for a bridge party, Maura is your girl, as it were.
I want to next apologise to the List Office Ian Robert and John, because when they sent out a list with timings, I would be emailing them, saying that they have allowed far too much time for a PTPH, and could they move everything up, and no, I was not often prepared to allow counsel to appear via CVP; this comes under my apologies to the Bar. The clerks in this court: well, they were landed with passing on my complaints about the heat, my refusal to fill in those ridiculous forms about why trials had cracked (does anybody think that anybody in the MOJ ever looks at these things?) and my complete inability to remember, the day after I had finished a case, what orders I had made and why I had made them. The ushers: pre-COVID-19, we had permanent ushers assigned to us; mine never seemed to stay for any length of time. Nearly all of them were promoted, if that is the right word: Ben became a clerk; Celeste, before she went to the CPS, was promoted to the List Office; as was Isabelle. I take the view that all of these promotions were as a result of the excellent training that was provided by me. To all the ushers, I apologise for that fact that I did not allow you formally to open court; as I kept on saying, when asked whether I wanted a formal opening of the court, “Do I look like Judge Anthony Leonard?” To the Probation Service: I apologise for the criticism of reports generally, and suggestions that during lockdown, drug rehabilitation or unpaid work was a sensible suggestion. But I do know, and I genuinely apologise for that, many of the problems were caused by the constant government changes in the structure of the service. To counsel: after John’s final remarks, I am not sure what I ought to apologise for, but, for impatience and my facial expressions, which I may say I was warned about as a pupil. Advocacy training I cannot stop, so I know that I have delivered advocacy training from the bench, not only to the Junior Bar. Finally, to my fellow judges: apologies for never being able to express an opinion, always sitting firmly on the fence and never ever wanting to go out for a drink.
To my fellow judges: apologies for never being able to express an opinion, always sitting firmly on the fence and never ever wanting to go out for a drink. So that brings me to thanks, genuine, heartfelt thanks: first of all, to Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, Charlie as he is known to his friends, for appointing me. Charles and I have worked together in two institutions – the Advocacy Training Council and the Judicial College. Both times he appointed me International Course Director for being the most entertaining companion one could have on one’s travels. You will not be surprised to hear that I do not remember anything about the James Bonds at all; that is good, because I had rather more than he did. To Deborah, for being such an excellent and supportive resident judge and a good friend. To John Ryder, what can I say? I am left speechless, but I want you to know that that interview as rehearsed by him is not the interview that I gave, and indeed any recent interviews are all down to the Foreign Office who insisted that I campaign for the election.
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
To Emma: my oldest friend, the only high court judge that I know of who has had two swearing-in ceremonies. One was held yesterday where the Lord Chief commended her on her bicycling skills. Her family and I sitting there were all shaking our heads because the most irritating factor about Mrs Justice Arbuthnot is her bike, which has to be left somewhere when we go out for dinner or to the theatre or wherever it is. To the court staff for correcting my legal errors and assessing which of the clerks would be able to deal with me. To the general administration in the building: too many of them to name but I am just going to name one – Tyler Francis. He sent me an email to say he was leaving and I wrote to say how sorry I was he was leaving and that I was very grateful for all his help, and he wrote back as follows, “Dear Judge, no worries, you are by far the funniest judge at Southwark, with your replies to counsel’s emails.” I thank everybody, the List Office and all the administration, for putting up with me. To all the ushers: I thank them for their help and kindness. And to my fellow judges, for their friendship and help when I had a problem. The cases at this court, as everyone knows, are enormously complex ones and the one sideswipe I do feel justified in making – because I am leaving it cannot be said there is a personal interest involved – is that this is still not recognised by the Ministry of Justice. The judges at the Central Criminal Court are recognised as senior Circuit judges because of the complexity of the work that they do; the same is not applied to the judges at this court, and I do say that in my judgment it should be. Whilst all the judges have been helpful, I am going to single out one in particular, because he is here today – Nick Lorraine-Smith. He retired in May of last year and so he did not get an occasion like this. If any judge deserved it, he did – he was one of the longest-serving judges at this court, one of the most respected for his expertise at his judgment and his good humour. He was the person to whom I would go to first for advice, and it was always good; his only failing was his desire to persuade his fellow judges that a good works outing was going to the National Film Theatre to see some completely obscure film made about 50 years ago. And finally, but in a sense it should have come first chronologically, I want to thank my old chambers, 6 King’s Bench Walk, David Perry and, in particular, I want to thank the retired and present senior clerks of number 6 – David Garstang and Andrew Barnes, who is also here today. Without them – and without the benefit of having had as a pupil master and as a mentor all through my career, Ann Curnow, who regrettably died at a young age – without their help and assistance, I would never have had the career that I have been lucky to have. So, I thank everybody, and as you know, I will be from 1 September in The Hague, and anybody who wants to come out there, not to see the court but to go out and have a good time, it will be great to see you. Her Honour Judge Deborah Taylor, The Rt Hon Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, John Ryder QC and Her Excellency Judge Korner © Crown Copyright
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Project Pegasus
PROJECT PEGASUS
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Pegasus Scholars
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
A Silver Lining: Remote working of the Bar Liaison Committee in the time of COVID
A SILVER LINING:
REMOTE WORKING OF THE BAR LIAISON COMMITTEE IN THE TIME OF COVID By the Chair of the BLC
It is perhaps a part of the human condition to look for the silver lining in any position however adverse. The pandemic, now some 18 months old, has certainly generated its own share of adversity for our profession and for our members but there have been some benefits. As with the courts, the Inn’s processes went through agile and speedy modernisation in a matter of a few weeks: for the Inn’s committees, including the Bar Liaison Committee (BLC), the move from all ‘in-person’ meetings, with the option to dial in on a conference line via tabletop star-phones, to entirely remote meetings on Zoom (as it happens, other video-conferencing platforms are available) was made in a number of weeks in March and April 2020. This short article examines the unforeseen benefits from the pandemic to the BLC of the adoption of holding meetings by videoconference.
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The Bar Liaison Committee’s function was well very described by my predecessor as Chair in the 2020 Yearbook as being the ‘nerves’ of The Inner Temple. Members of the BLC sit on all the committees of the Inn and they transmit information and opinions both ways. BLC members, who represent the members of Inn who are not Benchers, are at the centre of the dialogue between the Inn and its membership. The committee consists of 36 members together with various other Inn office holders who may attend.
Members of the BLC sit on all the committees of the Inn and they transmit information and opinions both ways. BLC members, who represent the members of Inn who are not Benchers, are at the centre of the dialogue between the Inn and its membership. Prior to the pandemic BLC meetings were undoubtedly best attended in person. Dialling-in on the conference line was far from perfect – even the presence of three or four microphones on the long table amidst some 20 people did not provide clear audio from all contributors and it was hard to raise points and sometimes it was also hard for those ‘in the room’ to hear those on the line. The move to videoconferencing was a considerable improvement – of necessity all participants have their own microphone and all those attending have an equal opportunity to flag a wish to speak. One of the purposes of the BLC is to ensure representation across the Inn’s membership and especially those based outside London – this aspect has really benefitted from the move to remote meetings. Each of the six Circuits have representatives 136
on the BLC. Understandably it was, and is, frequently not possible for these representatives physically to attend a meeting at 5.15pm on a Monday in the Inn and the new method of holding meetings has made much easier their involvement. The numbers attending the meetings are revealing and show the unexpected benefit of the move the remote meetings. Pre-pandemic attendance in 2019 showed that attendance in person peaked in April of that year at 12 in person and 8 by conference call. The lowest was in July 2019 with 7 attending in person and 8 via conference call. The average was roughly 8 in person and 8 on the phone thus 16 attendees in total. Having switched to Zoom from the April 2020 meeting the average attendance was significantly higher. There were 28 attending that first Zoom meeting with representatives from 5 of the 6 Circuits. Of course, the initial high attendance may also have been connected to the lockdown itself – members perhaps with more time on their hands may have played a part, together with the important business on the agenda regarding the measures to support the worst affected members during the pandemic. However the statistics show that the increase in attendance has proved sustained and broad based. In the remaining months the attendance averaged at 25 peaking at 29 in October 2020. Following the elections in November 2020 numbers crept up again peaking at 30 in February 2021. So far this year the average attendance has been 25.3. All in all we can safely conclude that one of the small benefits of the difficulties of dealing with Covid is that the BLC is now better attended and is as result more able represent all our members across the country. Indeed it also now the routine practise that even if circuit representatives are unable to attend BLC meetings, they regularly provide monthly updates.
All in all we can safely conclude that one of the small benefits of the difficulties of dealing with Covid is that the BLC is now better attended. This change, with all the benefits of wider and more effective representation, is here to stay. We plan to continue to facilitate as wide an attendance as possible. Future BLC meetings, once the Treasury building has re-opened will be hybrid – so whilst some may choose to attend in person, joining by videoconference will always be an option. This will help to ensure that opinions and concerns of members across the country are voiced by the BLC and indeed across the other committees of the Inn.
Simon Murray Chair of the Bar Liaison Committee
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Temple Church Choir
TEMPLE CHURCH CHOIR By the Director of Music
Break © Photo by Temple Church
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A year ago, I was writing about the impact the pandemic was having on live music and, in particular, the musicians who week by week provide glorious music in the Temple Church. The magnificent space and acoustics remained silent for months. Now we are back and singing again, the joy is palpable. During the January–March lockdown, we asked the choristers and parents to write down words they associated with the emotions experienced throughout the pandemic. The idea was to turn this into a libretto for a new 20-minute choral work to be written by composer Kenneth Hesketh, father of one of our choristers. The libretto was put together by Thomas Guthrie, a member of the choir, and the end result was a magnificent work scored for upper voices, organ, harp and desk bells. Carmina iempore viri is a powerful and moving work, which challenged everyone involved – a true Temple triumph. It received its debut on 11 June, when our 21 choristers performed a live concert on BBC Radio 3. The sheer determination and effort from each and every one was nothing short of Herculean, especially since singing at a social distance is incredibly difficult. Young choristers are left feeling remote and unsupported, the sound ‘spreads’, and there is difficulty finding the core to the tone. Rhythmically, the challenges are greater as the sound travels slowly. Given the year without any live singing, it isn’t difficult to see that this particular concert was probably the biggest challenge the choir has had since the aftermath of the Blitz. In the church, state-of-the-art equipment now enables all events to be streamed live on YouTube. The raison d’être of the church is to support and provide the two Inns with beautiful worship at times of joy and sadness. How wonderful it is that this is now available to everyone and can be appreciated much more widely than ever before.
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We have two exciting new initiatives in the music department. The most significant is the formation of four choral scholarships for females aged between 16–20. In our first batch of auditions, we were delighted by the quality of candidates. Nine young ladies sang to a panel of musicians. They were required to prepare one own-choice piece, respond to some sight singing and aural tests, and sing a duet with a professional singer. The duet had to be learnt at a week’s notice so that we could ascertain the level of speed of learning, which is important for this scholarship. The newly appointed sopranos will receive singing lessons and mentoring, and have the opportunity to sing in a professional environment alongside our expert adult choir, the Temple Singers. This choir is made up of some of the finest choral singers in London, each with their own freelance career. Their role here is primarily to sing at weddings and memorial services. They also sing regularly at Wednesday evensong.
This choir is made up of some of the finest choral singers in London, each with their own freelance career. Their role here is primarily to sing at weddings and memorial services. They also sing regularly at Wednesday evensong. The second initiative concerns the magnificent Temple Church organ, considered one of the finest instruments in London. While unashamedly Victorian, it is remarkable and versatile, excellent for accompaniment and, since the rebuild and enlargement in 2013, suitable for almost all repertoire.
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2020 was the 150th anniversary of Louis Vierne’s birth, and the organ world was set to celebrate one of its heroes. Like most events, the planned celebrations were cancelled, but with the onset of the first lockdown I had the thought to record the Six Symphonies. Fugue State Films agreed to promote it and, with funding from Temple Music Foundation, we were able to record it with both sound and video. There were challenges given the pandemic – no assistance at the console, the recording engineer in the vestry and the producer in Kent! – however, we are delighted with the results and, most importantly, the Temple organ sounds phenomenal. Of course, the organ has not got the very same colours as Notre-Dame but Vierne, unlike his two predecessors, was a travelling recitalist and was used to the organs in America. Therefore, the music is adaptable and strong enough to work on a large Victorian instrument. By coincidence, the current Temple organ was inaugurated by Marcel Dupré, Charles-Marie Widor’s successor at Saint-Sulpice.
However, we are delighted with the results and, most importantly, the Temple organ sounds phenomenal.
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Background: Louis Vierne was one of the 20th century’s greatest organ composers. He was organist at Notre-Dame in Paris for 37 years and famously died at the console during a concert. His six organ symphonies are considered to be the pinnacle of a style of writing pioneered in the Grand Pièce Symphonique by César Franck, organist at the Basilica of Saint-Clotilde, Paris, for 32 years. At the same time Franck was writing, organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was bringing new colours and timbres to the organ, developing new stops and transforming the instrument into a self-contained orchestra. Charles-Marie Widor, organist at Saint-Sulpice, Paris, further developed Franck’s new ‘symphonic’ style and, finally, Louis Vierne pushed it to its limits. Vierne’s life was tragic, and the pain of his depression and anguish of losing a brother and son is palpable in some of his music. He was registered blind and suffered a serious accident, after which he had to completely relearn his pedal technique. Despite this, he had a strong and positive spirit, and this juxtaposition gives his music power and beauty. Roger Sayer Organist – Director of Music The Temple Church
Above: Choristers. Top: In Rehearsal © Photo by Temple Church
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Weddings and Baptisms
WEDDINGS AND BAPTISMS
lice Tullo and Nicholas Judkins, A 28 May 2021 © Harry Richards Photography
TC om Francis and T Sanam Gharagozlou, 17 July 2021 © Cameo Photography
Francesca Thorley and James Mountford, 22 July © Martin Sylvester
J essica and Abby Clevenger with baby Abby, baptised on 25 July
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edra and Andrew Winter K with baby Isidore, 29 June 2021
The Temple Church
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Katie Cattrall and Daniel Moorey, 5 June 2021 © Stacey Wimbledon for Keeps Photography
lympia Norton O with her parents Petre and Camilla (nee ter Haar), 11 July 2021
ophie Lucaszewski and S Tom Killlen, 8 May 2021. © Natasha Hurley
J ames Pittaway and Sophie Williams, 26 June 2021 © Voyteck
Will and Emily Charlton with Maximilian, 6 June 2021
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Bar Liaison Committee
BAR LIAISON COMMITTEE MAVIS AMONOO-ACQUAH
SIMON ATKINSON
JAMES BATTEN
JOHN CLIFFORD
Called 2013 Student Engagement & Support Committee
Called 2011 International Committee; Pictures
Called 2013 Student Societies Committee; Drama Society; Revels; Yearbook
Called 1998 Car Park Committee; Revels
KATHERINE DUNCAN
HARRIET HOLMES
NASSTASSIA HYLTON
SIMON MURRAY
Called 2014 Wellbeing
Called 2011 Executive Committee; Garden
Called 2007 Debating Society
Called 2000 BLC Chair; Executive Committee; Bencher Nomination Committee; Church Committee
HELEN PUGH
KRISTIINA REED
SIMON REGIS
LIAM RYAN
Called 2008 Trusts
Called 2016 Pegasus Scholarship Trust
Called 1997 Equality, Diversity & Inclusivity Sub-Committee; Employed Bar Forum
Called 2007 Library Committee
DOMINIQUE SMITH
SPENCER TURNER
LILY WALKER-PARR
SARAH WILLIAMS
Called 2016 Scholarships Committee & Outreach Committee; Temple Women’s Forum
Called 2016 Scholarships Committee & Outreach Committee
Called 2018 Communications Sub-Committee
Called 1995 BLC Vice Chair; Executive Committee; Employed Bar Forum
BRETT WILSON
AARIF ABRAHAM
KEVIN ATHOW
BALDIP SINGH AULAK
Called 2008 Qualifying Sessions Committee; Marshalling
Called 2016 Qualifying Sessions Committee; Social Context of the Law
Called 1999 Silver
Called 2013 Advocacy Training Committee; Estates Committee
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Bar Liaison Committee
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KEY Elected
Co-opted
Circuit Representatives
Ex-Officio
MICHAEL D’ARCY
DARREN DUNN
RICHARD FOWLER
SARAH MARTIN
Called 2008 Information Technology
Called 1998 Insurances; Staff
Called 2003 Library Committee
Called 2008 Education & Training Committee; Marshall Hall Trust
REHANA POPAL
RAHUL VARMA
MICHAEL ALLIN
JONATHAN GODFREY
Called 2013 Bar Council Representative; Scholarships Committee
Called 2007 Scholarships & Outreach Committee
Called 2014 South Eastern Circuit
Called 1990 North Eastern Circuit; Mentoring
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SIMON GURNEY
JASON HADDEN MBE
LAURA JOHN
JULIAN SIDOLI
Called 2006 Northern Circuit
Called 2011 Midland Circuit; Cellar
Called 2007 European Circuit; Estates Committee; Library
Called 2005 Wales & Chester Circuit; Advocacy Training Committee
RICHARD WHEELER
ANTON VAN DELLEN
ANNABEL GOUGH
EMMA HYNES
Called 2004 Western Circuit; Scholarships & Outreach Committee
Called 2010 Junior Bar Auditor; Executive Committee (ex-officio); Finance Sub-Committee
Called 2015 Joint President Junior Bar Association; Education & Training Committee
Called 2013 Yearbook Editor
LAURA PAISLEY
GREG DOREY CVO
HENRIETTA AMODIO
Called 2015 Joint President Junior Bar Association; Moots
Sub-Treasurer
Secretary
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New Silks 2021
NEW SILKS 2021 (In alphabetical order)
SIMON BAKER QC
SHARON BEATTIE QC
ANDREW BIRD QC
CHRISTOPHER BUTTLER QC
Called to the Bar: 08/10/1998 2 Bedford Row
Called to the Bar: 25/11/1986 New Park Court
Called to the Bar: 23/07/1987 5 SAH
Called to the Bar: 14/10/2004 Matrix Chambers
JAMIE BURTON QC
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Called to the Bar: 14/10/1999 Doughty Street Chambers
CLARE DIXON QC Called to the Bar: 28/11/2002 4 New Square
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SOPHIE CARTWRIGHT QC Called to the Bar: 08/10/1998 Deans Court
PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER FORSYTH QC (HON) Called to the Bar: 19/05/1987 University of Cambridge
ALLAN COMPTON QC
CAROL DAVIS QC
Called to the Bar: 24/11/1994 2 Bedford Row
Called to the Bar: 01/10/1996 Littleton Chambers
MATHEW GULLICK QC
CRAIG HASSALL QC
Called to the Bar: 01/01/2003 3PB
Called to the Bar: 25/11/1999 Park Square
LUCY HENDRY QC
RICHARD HONEY QC
KATHRYN HUGHES QC
LOUISE HUTTON QC
Called to the Bar: 22/11/1988 3PB
Called to the Bar: 24/07/2003 Francis Taylor Building
Called to the Bar: 14/11/1992 9 Park Place Chambers
Called to the Bar: 08/10/1998 Essex Court Chambers
New Masters of the Bench
WILLIAM EMLYN JONES QC
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
ALEXANDER LEACH QC
ANYA LEWIS QC
SARA LEWIS QC
Called to the Bar: 11/10/2001 Lincoln’s House Chambers
Called to the Bar: 27/11/1997 Garden Court Chambers
Called to the Bar: 10/10/1996 St Philips
GILES MAYNARDCONNOR QC
PROFESSOR RACHAEL MULHERON QC (HON)
DEEPAK NAGPAL QC
CLAIRE PACKMAN QC
Called to the Bar: 24/11/1992 Exchange Chambers
Honorary Member – Legal Academic Queen Mary University of London
Called to the Bar: Ad Eundem 1KBW
Called to the Bar: 10/10/1996 4 Pump Court
Called to the Bar: 10/10/1996 Three Raymond Buildings
TOM POOLE QC
SIMON TAYLOR QC
MYRIAM STACEY QC
SALLY STONE QC
Called to the Bar: 08/10/1998 Landmark Chambers
Called to the Bar: 24/11/1994 1 GC Family Law
CATHERINE TASKIS QC
DAVID TEMKIN QC
RAYMOND TULLY QC
CRISPIN WINSER QC
Called to the Bar: 23/11/1995 Falcon Chambers
Called to the Bar: 27/07/2000 Exchange Chambers
Called to the Bar: 24/11/1987 Guildhall Chambers
Called to the Bar: 09/10/2003 Crown Office Chambers
Called to the Bar: 11/10/2001 3 Hare Court
Called to the Bar: 27/11/1997 Six Pump Court
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New Masters of the Bench 2021–2022
NEW MASTERS OF THE BENCH 2021–2022 Listed in order of Bencher status and by Call BARRISTER GOVERNING BENCHERS
SIMON MALLETT
KARON MONAGHAN QC
BARBARA MILLS QC
TOM WEISSELBERG QC
Called to the Bar: 24/07/1986 KBW, Leeds
Called to the Bar: 01/07/1989 Matrix Chambers
Called to the Bar: 16/10/1990 4PB
Called to the Bar: 12/10/1995 Blackstone Chambers
ZACHARY BREDEMEAR
DAVID TEMKIN QC
RICHARD HONEY QC
JOANNE CECIL
Called to the Bar: 10/10/1996 1 Chancery Lane
Called to the Bar: 27/07/2000 Exchange Chambers, Manchester
Called to the Bar: 25/07/2003 Francis Taylor Building
Called to the Bar: 24/11/2005 Garden Court Chambers
DAVID WOOD
CHRISTOPHER BOND
THEA WILSON
SAÕIRSE COWLEY
Called to the Bar: 26/07/2007 25 Bedford Row
Called to the Bar: 24/07/2008 3 Verulam Buildings
Called to the Bar: 24/07/2008 12 King’s Bench Walk
Called to the Bar: 27/11/2008 Government Legal Department, Leeds
HIS HONOUR JUDGE TEAGUE QC
HIS HONOUR JUDGE EYRE QC
HER HONOUR JUDGE WIGIN
HER HONOUR JUDGE ANUPAMA THOMPSON
Called to the Bar: 28/07/1977 Chief Coroner of England & Wales
Called to the Bar: 01/07/1981 Manchester Business & Property Courts
Called to the Bar: 26/07/1984 St Albans Crown Court/ Hull County Court
Called to the Bar: 24/11/1994 Harrow Crown Court
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JUDICIAL GOVERNING BENCHERS
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New Masters of the Bench 2021–2022
JUDICIAL GOVERNING BENCHERS (CONT)
HER HONOUR JUDGE LEIGH
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
OTHER GOVERNING BENCHER
JONATHAN WAITE QC
Called to the Bar: 11/11/1995 Basildon Combined Court
Called to the Bar: 27/07/1978 Retired Barrister, formerly member of Crown Office Chambers
Listed in alphabetical order ACADEMIC BENCHERS
DR SHAZIA CHOUDHRY
PROFESSOR RACHAEL FIELD
Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, Queen Mary, University of London
Professor of Law Bond University, Australia
PROFESSOR DIMITRIOS GIANNOULOPOULOS
HER HONOUR JUDGE HAMPEL SC
Professor of Law Goldsmiths, University of London
Adjunct Professor of Law Monash University, Australia
HONORARY BENCHERS
BARONESS VALERIE AMOS CH, PC Labour Life Peer and Master of University College, Oxford
THE REVD MARK HATCHER
ELIZABETH HOWE OBE
Called to the Bar: 1978 Reader of the Temple Church. Bencher of Middle Temple
President of the International Legal Assistance Consortium Board of Directors. Higher Court Advocate
THOMAS LEIGHTON Trustee of the American Inns of Court Foundation. Vice President for Government Relations and Content Acquisition, Thomson Reuters
HER HONOUR JUDGE ANNE MOLYNEUX Senior Circuit Judge at the Central Criminal Court. Former solicitor
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Masters of the Bench
MASTERS OF THE BENCH Honourable Society of the Inner Temple Masters of the Bench in Seniority Order (Correct as of 30 July 2021)
TREASURER 2021
His Honour Humphrey LLoyd QC (U)
The Rt Hon the Lord Wilson of Culworth (U)
Guy Fetherstonhaugh Esq QC (B)
Sir Edward Cazalet (S)
Giles Wingate-Saul Esq QC (S)
The Rt Hon Sir Mathew Thorpe (U)
Gerard Elias Esq CBE QC (S)
William Crowther Esq QC (U)
The Rt Hon Sir Jack Beatson FBA (O)
Roger Henderson Esq QC (O)
Anthony Hacking Esq QC (S)
John Deby Esq QC (O)
Sir Hugh Bennett (O)
His Honour Anthony Thompson QC (S)
Dermod O’Brien Esq QC (S)
READER ELECT 2021
Ian Hunter Esq QC (S)
The Rt Hon Sir Anthony Hooper (U)
Sir Robert Francis Esq QC (O)
Sir Peter North CBE DCL FBA QC (H)
Bruce Mauleverer Esq QC (S)
Sir Martin Jacomb (H)
His Honour Neil Butter CBE QC (S)
Patrick Ground Esq QC (B)
His Honour Duncan Matheson QC (U)
The Rt Hon Sir Stephen Brown GBE (S)
Professor Sir John Baker QC LLD FBA (H)
Her Honour Christian Bevington (S)
The Rt Hon the Baroness Butler-Sloss GBE (S)
His Honour James Wadsworth QC (U)
Miss Caroline Willbourne (B)
The Rt Hon The Lord Lloyd of Berwick DL (S)
Jules Sher Esq QC (U)
Her Honour Judge Hughes QC (J)
Stanley Brodie Esq QC (S)
Sir Michael Tugendhat (U)
Michael Sayers Esq QC (U)
Richard Southwell Esq QC (S)
John Crowley Esq QC (S)
Sir Richard Henriques (S)
The Rt Hon Sir Konrad Schiemann (O)
The Rt Hon Sir Stephen Sedley (U)
Martin Bowley Esq QC (O)
The Rt Hon Sir John Chadwick (O)
Dame Rosalyn Higgins GBE QC JSD FBA (S)
The Honourable Justice Stephen Breyer (H)
The Rt Hon Sir Bernard Rix (O)
Raymond Potter Esq CB (S)
The Honourable Justice Anthony Kennedy (H)
The Rt Hon Sir David Keene (O)
Nigel Hamilton Esq QC (U)
Tom Shields Esq QC (S)
The Rt Hon Sir Anthony May (S)
Sir Sydney Lipworth QC (H)
Sir Mark Havelock-Allan Bt QC (O)
Vivian Robinson Esq QC (S)
The Rt Hon Lord Sumption OBE (S)
His Honour Simon Brown QC (O)
The Rt Hon The Baroness Hallett DBE (S)
Nicholas Wood Esq (O)
Jonathan Acton Davis Esq QC (B)
Simon Thorley Esq QC (O)
Dame Elizabeth Slade DBE (S)
Anthony Temple Esq QC (O)
The Rt Hon Sir Stephen Tomlinson (O)
The Rt Rev and Rt Hon Lord Carey of Clifton (H)
Richard Rampton Esq QC (S)
ROYAL BENCHER HRH The Princess Royal KG KT GCVO QSO (R) READER 2021 Her Honour Judge Deborah Taylor (J)
MASTERS OF THE BENCH, EX-TREASURERS
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The Rt Hon Sir Martin Moore-Bick (O) His Honour Donald Cryan (Hon) LLD (O) David Pittaway Esq QC (B) The Rt Hon Dame Elizabeth Gloster DBE (O) The Rt Hon Lord Hughes of Ombersley (O) MASTERS OF THE BENCH David Widdicombe Esq QC (U) John Willmer Esq QC (S) The Rt Hon The Lord Woolf CH FBA (S) Sir Oliver Popplewell (O) The Hon Sir Charles Morrison QC (U) The Rt Hon the Lord Mackay of Clashfern KT (H) Professor Francis Reynolds DCL FBA QC (H) Sir Michael Morland (O) Nigel Inglis-Jones Esq QC (U) The Rt Hon the Lord Scott of Foscote (S) Sir Thomas Legg KCB QC (S) Sir Richard Curtis QC (U) Sir Allan Green KCB QC (U) Neville Thomas Esq QC (U) Sir Christopher Holland (S) Sir Edward Evans-Lombe (U) The Rt Hon the Lord Irvine of Lairg (S) Her Honour Shirley Anwyl QC (S) His Honour John Previte QC (U) The Rt Hon the Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover KG (H) Richard Clegg Esq QC (U) Michael Lyndon-Stanford Esq QC (U) The Rt Hon Sir Jonathan Parker (S) John Beveridge Esq QC (U) 148
Judge Martin Feldman (H) Sir Ivan Lawrence QC (B) James Goudie Esq QC (S) Christopher Lockhart-Mummery Esq QC (B) Richard Salter Esq QC (B) Sir David Steel (S) Neil Kaplan CBE QC SC (HK) (S) The Rt Hon Sir William Gage (S) Paul Purnell Esq QC (U) His Honour Jonathan Playford QC (S) Sir Thayne Forbes (S) Sir Brian Jenkins GBE (H) Murray Pickering Esq QC (S) The Baroness Mallalieu QC (U) Anthony Anderson Esq QC (U) Harry Turcan Esq (S) Gerald Angel Esq (S) The Rt Hon Sir Richard Buxton (U) Professor Sir Royston Goode CBE FBA QC (H) John Swift Esq QC (U) His Honour James Stewart QC (U) The Rt Hon the Lord Howard of Lympne CH QC (U) His Honour Jeremy Roberts QC (O) Sir David Clarke (U) Sir Neil Butterfield (S) His Honour Michael Lawson QC (O) The Reverend Roger ter Haar QC (B) Stephen Bickford-Smith Esq (B) Mrs Margaret Bickford-Smith QC (B) The Rt Hon Sir Jeremy Sullivan (U)
Sir Robert Owen (S) Christopher Purchas Esq QC (U) Miss Pamela Scriven QC (B) Nicholas Padfield Esq QC (S) The Rt Hon Sir Patrick Elias (S) Michael Shorrock Esq QC (S) Sir Gordon Langley (S) Sir Christopher Pitchers (S) Nigel Pascoe Esq QC (S) Her Excellency Judge Korner CMG QC (J) Oliver Sells Esq QC (B) Kenneth Aylett Esq (S) Andrew Tidbury Esq (B) Sir Timothy Walker (U) Nicholas Merriman Esq QC (S) Robin De Wilde Esq QC (S) Peter Birkett Esq QC (O) Robin Purchas Esq QC (B) Sir Geoffrey Nice QC (B) Sir Frederick Crawford DL FR Eng (H) The Baroness Deech DBE QC (Hon) (S) Professor Sir Ian Kennedy QC FBA (H) Sir Brian Keith (S) Michael Spencer Esq QC (B) Victor Temple Esq QC (S) Sir Robert Akenhead (O) Dame Caroline Swift DBE (O) Justin Fenwick Esq QC (B) Thomas Baxendale Esq (U) Kevin de Haan Esq QC (B) His Honour Jeffrey Burke QC (U)
Masters of the Bench
Ian Glick Esq QC (B)
The Hon Mr Justice Patrick Chan (H)
The Rt Hon the Lord Falconer of Thoroton (O)
Professor Sir Alan Dashwood KCMG CBE QC (S)
The Rt Hon Jack Straw (S)
Nigel Pleming Esq QC (B)
Judge Richard Posner (H)
His Honour Owen Davies QC (O)
Professor Andrew Ashworth PhD DCL FBA (A)
Charles George Esq QC (U)
His Honour John Adams (S)
The Rt Hon the Lord Cullen of Whitekirk KT (H)
Sibghatullah Kadri Esq QC (S)
M Jean-Paul Costa (H)
Robert Webb Esq QC FRAeS (B)
Michael Austin-Smith Esq QC (S)
Nicholas Davidson Esq QC (B)
His Honour Peter Collier QC (O)
Miss Rosamund Horwood-Smart QC (O)
Michael Redfern Esq QC (B)
Stuart Brown Esq QC (S)
Robert Smith Esq QC (S)
His Honour Judge Everall QC (O)
Andrew Trollope Esq QC (B)
His Honour John Milford QC (U)
Iain Milligan Esq QC (U)
Stephen Solley Esq QC (O)
Miss Elizabeth-Anne Gumbel QC (B)
Dorian Lovell-Pank Esq QC (B)
John Marrin Esq QC (B)
The Hon Mr Justice Field (S)
Richard Drabble Esq QC (S)
Sir Hayden Phillips GCB DL (H)
Gavin Kealey Esq QC (B)
His Honour Denis Orde (O)
His Honour Judge Burrell QC (J)
The Rt Hon Sir John MacDermott (H)
The Rt Hon Sir Julian Flaux , Chancellor of the High Court (J)
Sir Jeffery Bowman FCA (H) Justice Richard Goldstone (H) His Honour Michael Fysh QC SC (S) David Friedman Esq QC (S) Nicholas Stewart Esq QC (B) Timothy Raggatt Esq QC (S) Dame Laura Cox DBE (U) The Rt Hon Lady Black DBE (J) Sir Richard Gibbs (U) The Rt Hon The Lord Collins of Mapesbury LLD FBA (O) The Rt Hon The Baroness Clark of Calton QC (O) George Staple Esq CB QC (H) Michael de Navarro Esq QC (S) Godfrey Carey Esq QC (O) Rex Tedd Esq QC (B) His Honour Toby Hooper QC (O)
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
The Rt Hon the Lord Macdonald of River Glaven QC (O) The Rt Hon Sir Dennis Byron (O) Terence Coghlan Esq QC (S) Andrew Caldecott Esq QC (B) Jonathan Gaisman Esq QC (B) The Rt Hon Lord Justice Popplewell (J) The Hon Mr Justice Moor (J) Sir Alex Allan KCB (H) Sir Edward Caldwell KCB QC(Hon) (H) Ian Laing Esq CBE DL (H) Sir Ian McKellen CH CBE (H) David Spens Esq QC (S) His Honour Judge Ford QC (O) His Honour Judge Hammerton (J) His Honour Thomas Crowther QC (U) His Honour Nicholas Coleman (O) Sir Brian Williamson CBE (H) The Rt Hon Lord Hamilton (H) The Hon Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG (H)
Edward Fitzgerald Esq CBE QC (B)
Philip Mott Esq QC (U)
His Honour Judge Melbourne Inman QC (J)
Thomas Seymour Esq (U)
The Rt Hon Lord Justice Nicholas Green (J)
Sir Nicholas Stadlen (S)
Sir Stuart Lipton (H)
David Streatfeild-James Esq QC (B)
Anthony Porten Esq QC (U)
The Rt Hon Lord Justice Dingemans (J)
His Honour Nicholas Browne QC (O)
The Rt Hon Lady Justice Carr DBE (J)
His Honour Judge Pegden QC (J)
Dr Mary Malecka (O)
David Wilby Esq QC (O)
The Reverend and Valiant Master of the Temple (H)
The Hon Mr Justice Goss (J) His Honour Judge Leonard QC (J) The Hon Mrs Justice Alison Foster DBE (J) Roger Stewart Esq QC (B) The Hon Mr Justice Ribeiro (H) Professor Christopher Forsyth QC (Hon) (A) Dr Mads Andenas QC (Hon) PhD MA DPhil (A) Professor John Spencer CBE QC (A)
James Guthrie Esq QC (B)
The Rt Rev and Rt Hon Dr the Lord Williams of Oystermouth (H)
Sir Raymond Jack (U)
Malcolm Bishop Esq QC (B)
His Honour David Hodson (U)
Mrs Gay Martin (O)
His Honour Richard McGregor-Johnson (S)
Philip Sapsford Esq QC (U)
Dr Pehr Gyllenhammar (H)
His Honour Simon Bourne-Arton QC (O)
Sir Alan Wilkie (O)
The Rt Hon Lord Justice Nugee (J)
Peter Joyce Esq QC (B)
Professor Dr Jürgen Schwarze (H)
Christopher Moger Esq QC (S)
His Honour David Paget QC (O)
The Hon Philip Havers QC (B)
Her Honour Elisabeth Fisher (S)
His Honour Iain Hughes QC (U)
Sir Peter Openshaw (S)
Tim Charlton Esq QC (B)
His Honour Christopher Critchlow (J)
The Rt Hon Lord Justice Floyd (J)
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Adrian Brunner Esq QC (S) Nicholas Asprey Esq (S) Augustus Ullstein Esq QC (S) John Ross Esq QC (B) Professor Michael Lerego QC (O) Jeremy Storey Esq QC (B) James Turner Esq QC (B) The Hon Mrs Justice Lang DBE (J) The Hon Justice Salihu Moddibo Alfa Belgore (O) His Honour Judge Simon Davis (J) The Hon Mrs Justice Emma Arbuthnot (J) His Excellency Judge Kenneth Keith ONZ KBE (H) Sir Wyn Williams (O) The Rt Hon Lord Justice Moylan (J) Robert Rhodes Esq QC (B) His Honour David Tyzack QC (S) Patrick Upward Esq QC (S) His Honour Judge Melville QC (J) Miss Sally Smith QC (O)
KEY (B) Barrister Governing Bencher
(O) Other Governing Bencher
(H) Honorary Bencher
(S) Senior Bencher
(J) Judicial Governing Bencher
(U) Supernumerary Bencher
(A) Legal Academic
(V) Overseas Bencher 149
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
His Honour Judge Jeremy Richardson QC (J)
His Honour Simon Tonking DL (O)
Miss Sarah Clarke QC (B)
Nigel Giffin Esq QC (B)
Paul Bleasdale Esq QC (B)
Adam Constable Esq QC (B)
The Hon Mr Justice Jonathan Swift (J)
Andrew Tait Esq QC (B)
Dr Vanessa Davies (O)
Christopher Brougham Esq QC (B)
Simon O’Toole Esq (B)
The Rt Hon Lord Menzies (H)
Nicholas Atkinson Esq QC (B)
The Hon Mr Justice Cobb (J)
The Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis (H)
Miss Susanna FitzGerald QC (B)
The Hon Sir Peter Caruana KCMG QC (O)
Lyonpo Sonam Tobgye (H)
Orlando Pownall Esq QC (B)
Dr Navinchandra Ramgoolam GCSK FRCP (O)
Philip Punwar Esq (O)
The Hon Mr Justice Davis (J)
His Majesty King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck of Bhutan (H)
Professor the Hon George Hampel QC AM (A)
Richard Lissack Esq QC (B) Abbas Lakha Esq QC (B) Her Honour Frances Kirkham CBE (H) The Rt Hon Lady Justice King DBE (J) The Hon Mr Justice Michael Soole (J) His Honour Ian Grainger (O) Miss Margaret Bowron QC (B) His Honour Judge Seed QC (J) Charles Gibson Esq QC (B) The Rt Hon Lady Justice Simler DBE (J) Stuart Catchpole Esq QC (B) Iain Christie Esq QC (O) His Honour Giles Forrester (S) His Honour Alistair McCreath (O) His Honour Gregory Stone QC (S) Patrick O’Connor Esq QC (B) James Corbett Esq QC (B) His Honour Judge Bayliss QC (J) Steven Kay Esq QC (B) Sir David Green CB QC (B) Peter Wright Esq QC (B) Miss Deborah Eaton QC (B)
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Masters of the Bench
The Hon Mr Justice Lavender (J) His Honour Charles Harris QC (O) His Honour Judge Mark Brown (O) The Rt Hon Dame Victoria Sharp DBE, President of the Queen’s Bench Division (J) The Honourable Tan Sri Dato’ James Foong Cheng Yuen (O) Guy Beringer Esq QC (Hon) CBE (H) His Honour Judge Nigel Lithman QC (J) Her Honour Judge Hildyard QC (J) Andrew Goodman Esq (B) Grahame Aldous Esq QC (B) Matthew Reeve Esq (B) The Hon Mr Justice Russell Coleman (O) His Eminence Cardinal Vincent Nichols MA MEd STL (H) Michael Humphries Esq QC (B) Ms Alison Levitt QC (B) His Honour Stephen Oliver-Jones QC (O) His Honour Charles Wide QC (U) Sir Thomas Woodcock KCVO OStJ DL FSA (O) Professor Barry Rider OBE (A) The Hon Mrs Justice Juliet May DBE (J) Professor Robert Walsh (A) The Honourable Justice Baragwanath KNZM QC (O)
His Honour John Wait (S)
His Excellency Sir Elliott Belgrave GCMG KA CHB QC (O)
His Honour Philip Waller CBE (O)
The Hon Reginald Rhoda Esq CBE (O)
The Rt Hon The Lord Maude of Horsham (O)
Datuk Sulong Matjeraie (O)
Michael Pooles Esq QC (B)
Dame Alison Saunders DCB (B)
The Hon Mr Justice Martin Spencer (J)
Ami Feder Esq (B)
Her Honour Judge Patricia Lynch QC (J)
His Honour David Mitchell (S)
Miss Susan Jacklin (J)
John Ryder Esq QC (B)
Aftab Jafferjee Esq QC (B)
Mark Wyeth Esq QC (B)
Richard Barraclough Esq QC (B)
Jeremy Hill-Baker Esq (B)
Peter Village Esq QC (B)
Crispin Aylett Esq QC (B)
Ian Stern Esq QC (B)
Richard Humphreys Esq QC (B)
Miss Raquel Agnello QC (B)
The Hon Mrs Justice Roberts DBE (J)
Professor the Worshipful Mark Hill QC (B)
Miss Máirín Casey (O)
Ms Patricia Robertson QC (B)
Miss Eleanor Laws QC (B)
Sam Stein Esq QC (B)
Martin Goudie Esq QC (B)
Professor Nicola Lacey CBE FBA (H)
Alastair Hodge Esq (B)
The Rt Hon the Baroness Prashar CBE (H)
Graham Chapman Esq QC (B)
The Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia LVO (H)
Ms Desiree Artesi (B)
Professor Timothy Endicott (A)
Miss Fiona Jackson (B)
Professor Timothy Macklem (A)
Andrew Cayley Esq CMG QC (B)
Professor Julian Webb (A)
The Rt Hon The Lord Hunt Of Wirral MBE (H)
The Rt Hon Lord Reed (J)
The Hon Philip Remnant CBE ACA (H)
His Honour Inigo Bing (O)
The Rt Hon the Lord Chancellor (O)
Charles Parsley Esq (B)
Professor Spyridon Flogaitis (A)
Miss Julia Dias QC (B)
Paul Infield Esq (B)
The Hon Mrs Justice Finola O’Farrell DBE (J)
Stuart Denney Esq QC (O)
His Honour Judge Blair QC (J)
Miss Anne Richardson (B)
Alistair Schaff Esq QC (B)
The Hon Simon Davenport QC (B)
His Honour Judge Neil Clark (J)
Professor Leslie Thomas Esq QC (B)
Harry Matovu Esq QC (B)
Miss Sara Lawson QC (B)
The Hon Mrs Justice Christina Lambert DBE (J)
Christopher Quinlan Esq QC (B)
Miss Taryn Lee QC (B)
Miss Camilla Bingham QC (B)
Philip Moser Esq QC (B)
Ms Anneliese Day QC (B)
His Honour Judge Simon (J)
Scott Matthewson Esq (B)
Alexander Hall Taylor Esq QC (B)
The Hon Mrs Justice Kelyn Bacon (J)
Professor Cheryl Thomas QC (Hon) (A)
Miss Rachel Spearing (B)
John Griffith-Jones Esq (H)
The Hon Mr Justice Nasir-Ul-Mulk (O)
Michael Payton Esq QC (H)
The Rev Hugh Mead (H)
Ms Libby Purves OBE (H)
His Honour Jeremy Carey DL (O)
Judge Paul Mahoney (O)
Her Honour Judge Louise Bancroft (J)
Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon (H)
Her Honour Judge Corbett (J)
Nigel Aiken Esq QC SC (O)
His Honour Judge The Reverend James Patrick (J)
The Most Revd and Rt Hon Justin Welby (H) Richard Benson Esq QC (B) Mark George Esq QC (B) His Honour Judge Roger Thomas QC (J)
The Rt Hon Lord Justice Peter Jackson (J)
Michael Burrows Esq QC (B)
Miss Tracy Ayling QC (B)
Jonathan Laidlaw Esq QC (B)
The Hon Mr Justice Dove (J)
Rory Phillips Esq QC (B)
The Honourable Justice Iain Morley (O)
The Hon Mr Justice Griffiths (J)
Dr Colin Ong QC (O)
Sir Richard Heaton KCB (U)
Miss Helen Davies QC (B)
His Honour Judge Hiddleston (J)
The Rt Hon Lord Bonomy LLD (H)
Tim Lord Esq QC (B)
Judge Koen Lenaerts (H)
Daniel Toledano Esq QC (B)
150
Dr Anselmo Reyes (O) The Rt Hon Michael Gove MP (H) The Honourable Justice Ann Ainslie-Wallace (A) The Hon Mr Justice MacDonald (J) Christopher Sharp Esq QC (B) His Honour Judge Tolson QC (J) His Honour Judge Sloan QC (J) His Honour Judge Robinson (J) Thomas Kark Esq QC (B) Her Honour Judge Munro QC (J)
Masters of the Bench
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Her Honour Judge Gillian Matthews QC (J)
Faisel Sadiq Esq (B)
Upper Tribunal Judge Jacobs (J)
Miss Ruth Henke QC (B)
Miss Hui Ling McCarthy QC (B)
Martin Bowdery Esq QC (B)
David Wolfson Esq QC (B)
Ms Kay Firth-Butterfield (O)
Andrew Oldland Esq QC (B)
Paul Greaney Esq QC (B)
The Hon Mrs Justice Cutts DBE (J)
Teertha Gupta Esq QC (B)
Dr Catherine MacKenzie (O)
The Rt Hon Lady Dorrian (O)
Simon Kealey Esq QC (B)
Kieron Beal Esq QC (B)
Lawrence Teh Esq (O)
Thomas Cosgrove Esq QC (B)
Miss Saira Kabir Sheikh QC (B)
Professor Thom Brooks (A)
Robin Sellers Esq (B)
Justice George Wei (O)
Michael Stevenson Esq (H)
Miss Kate Brunner QC (B)
Timothy Le Cocq Esq QC, The Baliff of Jersey (O)
The Rt Hon the Lord Fowler (H)
Nicholas Craig Esq QC (B)
Miles Young Esq (H)
Ms Ruby Sayed (B)
YA Dato Faizah Jamaludin (O)
James Kitching Esq (B)
The Rt Hon The Baroness Buscombe (O)
Craig Hassall Esq QC (B)
His Honour Judge Townsend (J)
District Judge Heptonstall (J)
His Honour Judge Oliver (J)
Professor Rebecca Bailey-Harris (B)
Ms Alix Beldam (O)
Jonathan Rees Esq QC (B)
His Honour Judge Menary QC (J)
Miss Rebecca Dix (B)
Her Honour Judge Nicholls (J)
Miss Bibi Badejo (B)
Miss Lorna Meyer QC (B)
Jonathan Bremner Esq QC (B)
District Judge Foster (J)
Ms Leonie Hirst (B)
Kyri Argyropoulos Esq (B)
Miss Jennifer Oborne (B)
Dr Paul Brown QC (B)
Alderman Gregory Jones QC (B)
Her Honour Judge Clemitson (J)
Dr Shazia Choudhry (A)
His Honour Judge Bird (J)
Professor Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos (A)
Upper Tribunal Judge Frances (J)
The Rt Hon The Baroness Amos CH (H)
Oliver Saxby Esq QC (B)
Professor Rachael Field (A)
Benjamin Myers Esq QC (B)
Her Honour Judge Hampel SC (A)
Jason Sugarman Esq QC (B)
The Reverend Mark Hatcher (H)
John Kimbell Esq QC (B)
Ms Elizabeth Howe OBE (H)
His Honour Judge Petts (J)
Thomas Leighton Esq (H)
Rhys Taylor Esq (B)
Her Honour Judge Molyneux (H)
Charles Bagot Esq QC (B)
His Honour Judge Teague QC (J)
Carsten Zatschler Esq (B)
Jonathan Waite Esq QC (O)
Miss Diya Sen Gupta QC (B)
His Honour Judge Eyre QC (J)
Joseph Hart Esq (B)
Her Honour Judge Wigin (J)
The Hon Mr Justice Williams (J)
Miss Elizabeth Fitzgerald (B)
Simon Mallett Esq (B)
The Hon Mr Justice Choudhury (J)
Miss Sonia Nolten (B)
Miss Karon Monaghan QC (B)
The Hon Mr Justice Julian Knowles (J)
Miss Rehana Azib (B)
Miss Barbara Mills QC (B)
Patrick Maddams Esq Hon FRIBA (H)
District Judge Prest QC (J)
Her Honour Judge Anupama Thompson (J)
Professor Nigel Lowe QC (Hon) (S)
Dr Tunde Okewale Esq MBE (B)
Tom Weisselberg Esq QC (B)
Michael McParland Esq QC (B)
Ms Kathryn Arnot Drummond (B)
Her Honour Judge Leigh (J)
His Honour Judge Simon Phillips QC (J)
Justice Vinodh Coomaraswamy (O)
Zachary Bredemear Esq (B)
Miss Elizabeth McGrath QC (B)
Professor James Goudkamp (A)
David Temkin Esq QC (B)
Nicholas Griffin Esq QC (B)
The Hon Alexander Downer AC (A)
Richard Honey Esq QC (B)
Cyrus Larizadeh Esq QC (B)
Christopher Hayward Esq (H)
Miss Joanne Cecil (B)
Miss Leigh-Ann Mulcahy QC (B)
The Rt Rev James Jones KBE (H)
David Wood Esq (B)
Dr Annette Prandzioch (O)
Dr Nikki Lack (A)
Christopher Bond Esq (B)
Patrick Goodall Esq QC (B)
Kannon Shanmugam Esq (H)
Miss Thea Wilson (B)
Simon Baker Esq QC (B)
The Hon Mrs Justice Jennifer Eady DBE (J)
Miss Saoirse Cowley (B)
Ms Catherine Callaghan QC (B)
The Hon Mr Justice Andrew Henshaw (J)
Peter Clark Esq (B)
Dr Adam Scott OBE TD (O)
Sir Michael Arthur KCMG (H) Dr Tom Kinninmont (H) Professor John Wass MA MD FRCP (H) His Honour Judge Farrell QC (J) His Honour Judge Aaronberg QC (J) Lloyd Williams Esq QC (B) Miss Penelope Reed QC (B) His Honour Judge Lucraft QC (J) Ian Winter Esq QC (B) Adrian Keeling Esq QC (B) District Judge Ikram (J) Her Honour Judge Evans-Gordon (J) Andrew Warnock Esq QC (B) Thomas Mitcheson Esq QC (B) Ms Harini Iyengar (B) Ms Minka Braun (B) The Hon Mr Justice Butler (O) Professor Iyiola Solanke (A) Edward Chandler Esq (H) Ms Fiona Gilmore (H) Dame Clare Marx DBE DL FRCS (H) His Highness Tunku Besar Seri Menanti Negeri Sembilan (H) The Rt Hon Sir David Lidington KCB CBE MP (H)
I
KEY (B) Barrister Governing Bencher
(O) Other Governing Bencher
(H) Honorary Bencher
(S) Senior Bencher
(J) Judicial Governing Bencher
(U) Supernumerary Bencher
(LA) Legal Academic
(V) Overseas Bencher 151
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
People Finder
PEOPLE FINDER
I
TREASURY
020 7797 8250
enquiries@innertemple.org.uk
Sub-Treasurer
Greg Dorey CVO
020 7797 8177
subtreasurer@innertemple.org.uk
Head of the Sub-Treasurer’s Office
Jennie Collis Price
020 7797 8177
jcollisprice@innertemple.org.uk
Personal Assistant to the Sub-Treasurer
Wanda Szwed
020 7797 8179
wszwed@innertemple.org.uk
Director of the Treasury Office
Henrietta Amodio
020 7797 8182
hamodio@innertemple.org.uk
Assistant to the Director of the Treasury Office Nadia Ruiz
020 7797 8182
nruiz@innertemple.org.uk
Membership Registrar and Data Protection Lead
Jude Hodgson
020 7797 8206
jhodgson@innertemple.org.uk
Records and Membership Assistant
Jacqueline Fenton
020 7797 8241
jfenton@innertemple.org.uk
Member Events and Administration Manager
Kate Peters
020 7797 8183
kpeters@innertemple.org.uk
Member Events and Administration Assistant
Rosy Humphrey
020 7797 8264
rhumphrey@innertemple.org.uk
Archivist (part time)
Celia Pilkington
020 7797 8251
cpilkington@innertemple.org.uk
Assistant Archivist
Ayah Al-Rawni
020 7797 8251
AAl-Rawni@innertemple.org.uk
EDUCATION and TRAINING
020 7797 8208
education@innertemple.org.uk
Dean of Education
Professor Cheryl Thomas QC
020 7797 8259
Director of Education
Struan Campbell
020 7797 8214
scampbell@innertemple.org.uk
Education and Student Support Manager
Julia Armfield
020 7797 8207
jarmfield@innertemple.org.uk
Education Co-ordinator and Assistant to the Director of Education
Kerry Upham
020 7797 8189
kupham@innertemple.org.uk
Education and Student Support Co-ordinator
Helen Gaskell
020 7797 2386
hgaskell@innertemple.org.uk
Education Programme Manager (Established Practitioner)
David Miller
020 7797 8209
dmiller@innertemple.org.uk
Call to the Bar and Professional Training Co-ordinator
Richard Loveridge
020 7797 8212
rloveridge@innertemple.org.uk
Scholarships and Student Engagement Manager
Sellisha Lockyer
020 7797 8210
slockyer@innertemple.org.uk
Scholarships and Student Engagement Co-ordinator
Georgina Everatt
020 7797 8211
geveratt@innertemple.org.uk
Outreach Manager
Daisy Mortimer
020 7797 8262
dmortimer@innertemple.org.uk
Outreach and Professional Training Co-ordinator
Edwina Koroma
020 7797 8213
ekoroma@innertemple.org.uk
COLLECTOR’S DEPARTMENT
020 7797 8187
collectors@innertemple.org.uk
Collector
David Bartlett
020 7797 8185
dbartlett@innertemple.org.uk
Human Resources Manager
Zakiyah Kihl
020 7797 8225
zkihl@innertemple.org.uk
Financial Controller
Ania Johnson
020 7797 8242
ajohnson@innertemple.org.uk
Assistant Collector
Emma Prayer
020 7797 8186
eprayer@innertemple.org.uk
Accounts and Payroll Clerk
Joanna Zawada
020 7797 8187
jzawada@innertemple.org.uk
IT Head of IT / Systems Librarian
Peter Higgins
020 7797 8220
phiggins@innertemple.org.uk
Senior Network Administrator
Jonathan Delaney
020 7797 8188
jdelaney@innertemple.org.uk
Technology and Communications Officer
Paul Clark
020 7797 8229
pclark@innertemple.org.uk
LIBRARY
020 7797 8217
library@innertemple.org.uk
Librarian and Keeper of Manuscripts
Robert Hodgson
020 7797 8215
rhodgson@innertemple.org.uk
Deputy Librarian
Tracey Dennis
020 7797 8248
tdennis@innertemple.org.uk
Library Administrator
Tina Williams
020 7797 8216
twilliams@innertemple.org.uk
Assistant Librarian (enquiries and cataloguing)
Michael Frost
020 7797 8292
mfrost@innertemple.org.uk
Assistant Librarian (enquiries and acquisitions)
Sally McLaren
020 7797 8221
smclaren@innertemple.org.uk
Senior Library Assistant (enquiries and binding)
Simon Hindley
020 7797 8222
shindley@innertemple.org.uk
Senior Library Assistant (enquiries and binding)
James Rowles
020 7797 8223
jrowles@innertemple.org.uk
Enquiry Desk
020 7797 8217/8218
SURVEYOR’S DEPARTMENT
020 7797 8200
surveyors@innertemple.org.uk
Director of Properties and Surveyor
Richard Snowdon
020 7797 8203
rsnowdon@innertemple.org.uk
Capital Programme Manager
Nicholas Waring
020 7797 8192
nwaring@innertemple.org.uk
Facilities Manager
Lukas Jelinek
020 7797 8199
ljelinek@innertemple.org.uk
Office Manager (Job Share)
Rene Hicks and Anne Mason
020 7797 8173 /8200
rhicks@innertemple.org.uk or amason@innertemple.org.uk
Estates Officer
Albena Ahjem
020 7797 8202
aahjem@innertemple.org.uk
Mechanical and Electrical Engineer
Darren Readings
020 7797 8198
dreadings@innertemple.org.uk
Works Supervisor
Paul Simmonds
020 7797 8190
psimmonds@innertemple.org.uk
152
People Finder
The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Facilities Foreman
Delbert Brooks (Julius Rutherfoord) 020 7797 8195
dbrooks@innertemple.org.uk
Electrical Supervisor
Ian Ward
020 7797 8197
iward@innertemple.org.uk
Plumbing and Mechanical Supervisor
Tony Baca
020 7797 8196
tbaca@innertemple.org.uk
Carpentry Supervisor
Steve Hanks
020 7797 8239
shanks@innertemple.org.uk
CATERING
020 7797 8230
catering@innertemple.org.uk
Head of Catering
Vicky Portinari
020 7797 8231
vportinari@innertemple.org.uk
Deputy Head of Catering
Priya Patel
020 7797 8233
ppatel@innertemple.org.uk
Operations Manager
Adam Bracegirdle
020 7797 8260
abracegirdle@innertemple.org.uk
Sales and Marketing Manager
Stuart Gavin
020 7797 8267
sgavin@innertemple.org.uk
Sales Manager
Maxine Reynolds
020 7797 8193
mreynolds@innertemple.org.uk
Events Manager
Csaba Hons
020 7797 8191
chons@innertemple.org.uk
Back of House Manager
Adam Finnegan
020 7797 8244
afinnegan@innertemple.org.uk
Management Accountant
Agnieszka Chojnacka
020 7438 2302
achojnacka@innertemple.org.uk
Executive Head Chef
Daniel Broughton
020 7797 8232
dbroughton@innertemple.org.uk
Head Chef
Michael Wilson
Pegasus Bar Manager
mwilson@innertemple.org.uk
020 7797 8234
GARDEN Head Gardener
Sean Harkin
020 7797 8243
sharkin@innertemple.org.uk
Senior Gardener
Sophie Tatzkow
020 7797 8243
statzkow@innertemple.org.uk
Trainee Gardener
Sam Fry
020 7797 8243
sfry@innertemple.org.uk
Part-time Gardener
Emily Blackmore
020 7797 8243
eblackmore@innertemple.org.uk
PORTERS (including weekends and silent hours)
020 7797 8255
porters@innertemple.org.uk
Head Porter
Robert Ellis
020 7797 8255
rellis@innertemple.org.uk
Under Porter 1
Robert Grier
020 7797 8255
rgrier@innertemple.org.uk
Under Porter 2
Jason Perry
020 7797 8255
jperry@innertemple.org.uk
020 7583 1034
tudorlodge@innertemple.org.uk
Tudor Street Gate and Night Security
TEMPLE CHURCH Master of the Temple
The Rev Robin Griffith-Jones
020 7353 8559
master@templechurch.com
Reader
The Rev Mark Hatcher
020 7353 8559
reader@templechurch.com
Verger
Matthew Power
020 7353 3470
verger@templechurch.com
Administrator
Catherine de Satgé
020 7353 8559
catherine@templechurch.com
MUSIC OFFICE Director of Music
Roger Sayer
020 7427 5650
roger@templechurch.com
Assistant Director of Music
Thomas Allery
020 7427 5650
thomas@templechurch.com
Liturgical Organist
Charles Andrews
020 7427 5650
charles@templechurch.com
Music Administrator
Susan Keeling
020 7427 5650
susan@templechurch.com
TEMPLE MUSIC FOUNDATION (TMF) Chief Executive
Carol Butler
020 7427 5641
carol@templechurch.com
Marketing Manager
Claire Hargrove
020 7427 5641
claire@templechurch.com
Events Assistant
Alessia Watson
020 7427 5641
alessia@templechurch.com
COUNCIL OF THE INNS OF COURT (COIC) (at Gray’s Inn)
020 7822 0760 info@coic.org.uk
Director of COIC
James Wakefield
020 7822 0761
jwakefield@coic.org.uk
PA to Director of COIC
Hayley Dawes
020 7822 0762
hdawes@coic.org.uk
Head of Quality & Standards
Joanna Robinson
jrobinson@coic.org.uk
Digital Manager
Adrian Clarke
aclarke@coic.org.uk
020 7822 0769
BAR TRIBUNALS & ADJUDICATION SERVICE (BTAS) (at Gray’s Inn)
020 3432 7350 info@tbtas.org.uk
COIC Registrar
James Wakefield
020 7822 0761
jwakefield@coic.org.uk
BTAS Administrator
Margaret Hilson
020 3432 7348
margaret.hilson@tbtas.org.uk
THE INNS OF COURT COLLEGE OF ADVOCACY (ICCA)
020 7822 0763 info@icca.ac.uk
Dean
Lynda Gibbs
020 7822 0768
lgibbs@icca.ac.uk
Operations Manager
Beth Phillips
020 7822 0764
bphillips@icca.ac.uk
Head of Programmes
Chris Kessling
020 7822 0767
ckessling@icca.ac.uk
Head of Programmes
Andy Russell
020 3432 7346
andy.russell@tbtas.org.uk
Bar Course Leader
Alexandra Frith
020 7822 0767
afrith@icca.ac.uk
153
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The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
CHAIRS OF BENCH COMMITTEES & SUB-COMMITTEES EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Master Treasurer ADVOCACY TRAINING COMMITTEE Master Martin Griffiths
TREASURER NOMINATION COMMITTEE Master Anthony Hughes
MASTERS OF THE CIRCUITS AND ASSISTANT MASTERS
ARCHIVES COMMITTEE Master Donald Cryan
European: Master Nicholas Green Master Kieron Beal
BENCHER NOMINATION COMMITTEE Master Reader
Midland: Master Paul Bleasdale Master Richard Benson
COMMUNICATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE Master Raquel Agnello EDUCATION & TRAINING COMMITTEE Master Alison Levitt EMPLOYED BAR FORUM Master Sara Lawson EQUALITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSIVITY SUB-COMMITTEE Master Ingrid Simler
I
Inner Temple Committees
ESTATES COMMITTEE Master Roger Stewart FINANCE SUB-COMMITTEE Master Julia Dias (Senior Bench Auditor) INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE Master Julian Flaux INVESTMENT SUB-COMMITTEE Master Matthew Reeve LIBRARY COMMITTEE Master Sally Smith SCHOLARSHIPS & OUTREACH COMMITTEE Master Fiona Jackson PEGASUS SCHOLARSHIP TRUST Master Martin Goudie QUALIFYING SESSIONS COMMITTEE Master Rory Phillips STUDENT ENGAGEMENT & SUPPORT COMMITTEE Master Saira Kabir Sheikh TEMPLE WOMEN’S FORUM Master Leigh-Ann Mulcahy (Co-Convenor)
154
Northern Circuit: Master Louise Bancroft Master Nigel Bird Master Joseph Hart North Eastern Circuit: Master Neil Clark Master Anne Richardson Master Gillian Matthews South Eastern: Master Kathryn Arnot Drummond Master Fiona Jackson Master Oliver Saxby Wales & Chester: Master Timothey Petts Master Rhys Taylor Western: Master Christopher Quinlan Master James Patrick Master James Townsend
TEMPLE CHURCH COMMITTEE Master Stephen Tomlinson
MARSHALL HALL TRUST Master Jonathan Waite
TEMPLE MUSIC FOUNDATION Master Guy Beringer
INNER TEMPLE REPRESENTATIVES ON EXTERNAL BODIES BAR COUNCIL Master Robert Rhodes Master Minka Braun Rehana Popal (BLC Rep) BARRISTERS’ BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION Master Elisabeth Fisher Master Daniel Toledano BAR TRIBUNALS & ADJUDICATION SERVICE TRIBUNAL APPOINTMENTS BODY Master Ingrid Simler (Chair) Master Caroline Willbourne Master Ian Stern COUNCIL OF THE INNS OF COURT Master Helen Davies Sub-Treasurer COIC MATCHED FUNDED PUPILLAGE SCHEME Master Pamela Scriven INNS’ STRATEGIC ADVISORY GROUP Master Treasurer Master Reader Master Helen Davies Sub-Treasurer INCORPORATED COUNCIL OF LAW REPORTING Master Margaret Bowron Master Mary Malecka INNS OF COURT AND BAR EDUCATIONAL TRUST Master Rory Phillips INNS OF COURT COLLEGE OF ADVOCACY Master Adam Constable (Inner Temple Governor) Master Catherine MacKenzie (Academic Governor) INNS OF COURT LIBRARIES LIAISON COMMITTEE Master Sally Smith INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED LEGAL STUDIES (IALS) Master Mark Havelock-Allan SELDEN SOCIETY Master Donald Cryan
Gifts
innertemple.org.uk/store gifts-halfpagers.indd 2
03/09/2021 11:59
New for 2022 Two floors, ten event spaces. Adding a new dimension to training, meetings, receptions and dinners with River Thames views. Rooms inclusive of audio/visual equipment, natural daylight, catering packages and flexible layout options.
º catering@innertemple.org.uk ŵ innertemple.org.uk/trainingrooms
catering-halfpagers.indd 3
08/09/2021 17:25