News
Inspirational Lord Bingham dies
- 15th September 2010
The legal world is mourning the death of Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the former lord chief justice who was an inspiration to many young lawyers throughout his career in the legal profession.
Lord Bingham, who did not take a law degree before he qualified, became the first judge to hold the top three judicial posts in the UK – master of the rolls, lord chief justice and senior law lord.
In her tribute to Lord Bingham, Afua Hirsch, the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent, says: “It's impossible to get a law degree without becoming intimately familiar, for example, with the quirkier aspects of Lord Denning's personality. I always remember giggling at his judgment in a famous case about a market trader who was confronted by a council officer when he peed in the street. We are not told the words used by the security officer. I expect they were in language which street traders understand.”
His influence was as recent as being a strong advocate for the creation of the new Supreme Court to make the judiciary more visibly independent of the state.
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