Member News
By Ross Cranston - 27th December 2009
Over the festive season ePolitix.com is publishing some of the best articles and interviews of 2009 from our sister publication The House Magazine.
In February former member for Dudley North Ross Cranston investigated MPs who became high court judges.
The path from House of Commons to High Court bench was at one time well trodden. There are many examples from the 19th century. But what of more recent times?
Since World War II there are three examples of backbench MPs being appointed to the High Court.
One was Terence Donovan, Labour MP for Leicester East 1945-8 and Leicester North East in 1950. The appointment was not politically controversial, since Donovan had a high standing at the Revenue bar.
Later Donovan was promoted to the Court of Appeal by a Conservative lord chancellor and then to the House of Lords in 1964. Perhaps outside the law he is best known for chairing the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Association, which reported in 1967.
Basil Nield was Conservative MP for the City of Chester from 1940 to 1956.
During the war he served in the Middle East, being mentioned in despatches, and had been president of the Palestine Military Courts. From 1948 to 1957 he was Recorder of Salford and from 1957 Recorder of Manchester and a judge of the Crown Court.
He became a High Court Judge in 1960. His proudest achievement as a judge was to have presided at all 61 Assize towns in England and Wales before the abolition of the assize system.
The last backbench MP appointed to the High Court bench was Gerald Howard.
His father had been Liberal MP for Sudbury 1918-22 and he stood as a Liberal himself in his mid-twenties. Twenty-one years later in 1945 he stood as a Conservative for Cambridgeshire, narrowly losing, but finally succeeding there in 1950.
Howard was a successful criminal practitioner, Treasury Counsel at the Old Bailey and a prosecutor in some famous post-war trials. In 1961 Viscount Kilmuir as lord chancellor appointed him to the bench.
There are four examples of MPs who have been law officers becoming judges. Reginald Manningham-Buller's father had been an MP; his daughter has recently been appointed to the House of Lords.
With a modest practice as a barrister he became MP for Daventry in 1943. In 1951 he became solicitor general and in 1954, attorney general. He was promoted to be lord chancellor in 1962.
Reggie Manningham-Buller would never have won a popularity contest. His role in collecting cabinet opinion on Macmillan's successor in October 1963, and the basis on which he reported that the preponderant opinion was for Alec Douglas-Home, was savagely criticised within the Conservative Party, notably by Iain Macleod.
Manningham-Buller was clearly valued by Churchill, and later Macmillian. As a lawyer his greatest contribution came when, in 1969, the Labour lord chancellor, Gerald Gardiner, recommended his appointment as a regular judge in our highest court, the House of Lords.
Already active in Conservative politics, James Reid was elected in 1931 as MP for Stirling and Falkirk.
He lost the seat in 1935, but came in again at a by-election as member for Hillhead in 1937. Reid became solicitor-general for Scotland 1936-1941, and lord advocate 1941-1945. In opposition after 1945 he became a formidable critic of the Attlee government.
Perhaps that makes surprising the extraordinary offer in 1949 of direct appointment as a law lord. Although not an English lawyer, he excelled in developing its principles during that period. His influence on the law still continues.
Lynn Ungoed-Thomas was part of that great influx of Labour MPs elected in 1945.
His first constituency was Llandaff and Barry, but in 1950 he stood for Carmarthen. He lost, but later in the year became MP for Leicester North East – succeeding Terence Donovan – until his appointment as a high court judge, in the Chancery division, in 1962.
He had been solicitor general for six months prior to the October 1951 election defeat. Ungoed-Thomas had continued to practice as a barrister while an MP and was well regarded by his legal peers. He spent a decade on the bench.
Many will remember Lord Simon of Glaisdale in his fourth career as an active cross-bencher in the House of Lords, until his death in 2006.
Jocelyn Simon began at the bar in 1934, served in the war, and became MP for Middlesbrough West in 1951. After ministerial stints at the Home Office and the Treasury, he became Solicitor General in 1959 and remained in that office until he left Parliament in 1962, on his appointment as President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court.
Simon left a considerable legacy as a senior judge. He was prepared to mould the common law to the realities of changing social conditions and to address issues of public policy. Simon expressed himself beautifully.
His background as a politician also made him acutely aware of the need for the courts and Parliament to respect each other. In that regard I was able to advance his judgment in a case called Pickin when as Solicitor General I defended Parliament's corner before the House of Lords in the Neil Hamilton litigation.
So these are the seven instances of MPs becoming judges which I've been able to unearth in the last 50 years.
There may be others. They are a reasonably interesting bunch – although that may be a lawyer talking.
Ross Cranston was Labour MP for Dudley North 1997-2005. In 2007 he was appointed a High Court judge on the recommendation of the Judicial Appointments Commission.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd