Robert Carswell, Baron Carswell

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Robert Douglas Carswell, Baron Carswell, PC, QC (born 28 June 1934), is a British barrister and judge.

The son of Alan and Nance Carswell was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and the Pembroke College, Oxford, where he received a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in classics and law in 1956. Two years later he graduated from the Chicago University, Law School with a Doctor of Jurisprudence.

Carswell was Counsel to the Attorney General for Northern Ireland in the years 1970 and 1971, and Senior Crown Counsel in Northern Ireland from 1979 to 1984. In 1984, he became Judge of the High Court of Justice Northern Ireland, a post he held until 1993. He was Lord Justice of Appeal at the Supreme Court of Judicature in Northern Ireland from 1993 to 1997 and further Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland from 1997 to 2004.

Lord Carswell was made a Queen's Counsel in 1971 and became a Privy Counsellor in 1993. He was appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary ^[1] and created a life peer as Baron Carswell, of Killeen in the County of Down on 12 January 2004,^[2] having been knighted in 1988.

Lord Carswell has been married to Romayne Winifred Ferris since 1961; they have two daughters.

[edit] Quotes

“… if a defendant has been denied a fair trial it will almost be inevitable that the conviction will be regarded unsafe, the present case in our view constitutes an exception to the general rule” ^[3]

“If ever there was a clear case of a miscarriage of justice, this is it.....Lord Chief Justice, Sir Robert Carswell, refused to quash Christy Walsh's conviction, issuing one of the worst judgments we have ever seen.” ^[4]