25/10/2021
LORD DENNING: MASTER OF THE ROLLS
Lord Denning, is to many, the most famous Judge of all time. Law students certainly love him for his colourful judgments and wild dissents.
It has been rumoured that law students, during law exams, create a non existent quote or a case and attribute it to Lord Denning.
As a judge for 38 years, Denning was known as "the people's judge", for his willingness to override precedents to do what he saw as justice and for his simply-worded judgments.
Denning was the last judge to have the right to stay in the job for life. He joked that he had “every Christian virtue, except resignation”.
While Denning’s judgments certainly make for interesting reading, they’ve also been slammed for being difficult to follow. And, as Denning grew older and older, he grew more senile and arguably more controversial
Denning’s comment about black people serving on juries, made in 1982, is perhaps his most controversial.
Denning wrote in his book What Next in the Law.
“The underlying assumption is that all citizens are sufficiently qualified to serve on a jury,”
“I do not agree. The English are no longer a homogeneous race. They are white and black, coloured and brown. They no longer share the same standards of conduct. Some of them come from countries where bribery and graft are accepted as an integral part of life and where stealing is a virtue so long as you are not found out… They will never accept the word of a policeman against one of their own.”
The comments caused such a backlash, he publicly apologised and resigned soon after.
He retired aged 83 after making that rather poorly chosen remarks and died a few months after his 100th birthday.
What do you like about Lord Denning MR?
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