Harry Woolf, Baron Woolf
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Harry Kenneth Woolf, Baron Woolf, PC, FBA (born May 2, 1933) retired as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales on October 1, 2005. The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 made him the first Lord Chief Justice to be President of the Courts of England and Wales. He has been a non-permanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong since 2003.
The son of a builder and architect, Woolf was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. He attended Fettes College in Edinburgh and then studied law at University College London (UCL). He was called to the bar in 1955, was junior counsel for the Inland Revenue from 1973 to 1974, and first Treasury Counsel (Common Law) from 1974 to 1979.
He was appointed as a High Court judge in the Queen's Bench Division in 1979, promoted to Lord Justice of Appeal in 1986, and became a Law Lord in 1992, being created a life peer as Baron Woolf, of Barnes in the London Borough of Richmond. He was Master of the Rolls from 1996 until 2000, when he succeeded Lord Bingham of Cornhill as Lord Chief Justice.
He was outspoken in his final judicial post. In 2004, in a speech at the University of Cambridge, he spoke out against the Constitutional Reform Act, which will create a Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to replace the House of Lords as the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom, and severely questioned the Lord Chancellor's and the Government's handling of recent constitutional reform. He delayed his retirement as Lord Chief Justice until these issues were resolved.
He was also the head of the committee that reformed civil law and excised many of the remaining Latin terms from English law, in an attempt to make it more accessible (such as changing the ancient word 'plaintiff' to the 'claimant'). The Civil Procedure Rules 1998 are a direct result of his work. He is a supporter of prison reform.
He joined Blackstone Chambers as a mediator and arbitrator immediately after he retired in 2005. From September to December 2005, he conducted a review of the working methods of the European Court of Human Rights, and he is chairman of the Bank of England Financial Markets Law Committee. He is Chairman of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and became Chairman of the Council of UCL in 2005. He is also a visiting Professor of Law at UCL.
On 25 February 2007, he was inaugurated as the first President of the Qatar Financial Centre Civil and Commercial Court, in Doha Qatar.
[edit] Famous judgments
- Pearce v United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust [1999] PIQR 53
[edit] References
- Press Release on QFC Court appointment
- CV from Blackstone Chambers. Retrieved 12 September 2006.
- Speech by his successor
| Legal Offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by The Lord Bingham of Cornhill |
Master of the Rolls 1996-2000 |
Succeeded by The Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers |
| Preceded by The Lord Bingham of Cornhill |
Lord Chief Justice 2000-2005 |
Succeeded by The Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers |
 |
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Categories: United Kingdom law biography stubs | 1933 births | Living people | Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom | Life peers | Law lords | English judges | Lords Chief Justice of England and Wales | Alumni of University College London | Fellows of the British Academy | People from Newcastle upon Tyne | Justices of the Court of Appeal | Fettes alumni | British Jews
