Jonathan Sumption
| The Right Honourable Lord Sumption OBE |
|
|---|---|
| Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 11 January 2012 |
|
| Monarch | Elizabeth II |
| Preceded by | The Lord Collins of Mapesbury |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 9 December 1948 |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Eton College Magdalen College, Oxford |
Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption, Lord Sumption, OBE (born 9 December 1948), is a British judge and medieval historian. He was sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court on 11 January 2012, succeeding Lord Collins of Mapesbury.[1] Unusually, he was raised to the Supreme Court directly from the practising Bar, rather than from prior service as a full-time judge.
Sumption is known for his appearance as a barrister in many cases. They include appearances in the Hutton Inquiry on the UK government's behalf,[2], in the Three Rivers case,[3], his representation of former Cabinet minister Stephen Byers and the UK Department for Transport in the Railtrack private shareholders' action against the British Government in 2005,[4] and for defending the government in an appeal hearing brought by Binyam Mohamed.[5]
As a historian his works include a substantial narrative history of the Hundred Years' War, so far in three volumes.
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[edit] Early life
Sumption's parents were Anthony Sumption, a decorated Royal Naval officer and barrister, and Hilda Hedigan; their marriage was dissolved in 1979.[6]
Sumption was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford. He graduated from Oxford University in 1970, receiving a B.A. degree in History with first class honours.[7] He worked in History as a Fellow of Magdalen College, before leaving to pursue law. He was called to the bar at Inner Temple in 1975 and subsequently pursued a successful legal practice in commercial law. In the late 1970s Sumption wrote regularly for the Sunday Telegraph.
[edit] Legal career
He became a Queen's Counsel in 1986, and a Bencher at Inner Temple in 1991. He has served as a deputy High Court judge in the Chancery Division, and a judge of the Court of Appeal of Jersey[8] and the Guernsey Court of Appeal.
He has been a member of the Judicial Appointments Commission. He has also been a Governor of the Royal Academy of Music. Until his appointment to the Supreme Court, he was joint head of Brick Court Chambers.[4]
On 30 November 2007, he successfully represented himself before Lord Justice Collins in a judicial review application in the Administrative Court concerning development near his home in Greenwich.[9]
[edit] Supreme Court
On 4 May 2011 it was announced that Sumption would take a seat on the Supreme Court at a later date.[10] Upon his subsequent swearing-in on 11 January 2012,[1] he was styled as a Lord for life.[11] Sumption had been appointed to the Privy Council on 14 December 2011 in anticipation of his joining the Court, whose justices double as the Privy Council's Judicial Committee.[12]
Sumption is the first individual appointed to the Supreme Court without previously serving as a full-time judge since its inception in 2009. There were only five such appointments to the court's predecessor, the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords. Two were Scots lawyers: Lord Macmillan in 1930 and Lord Reid in 1948; the others were Lord Macnaghten (1887), Lord Carson (1921) and Lord Radcliffe (1949).
[edit] Earnings as a barrister
The Guardian once described him as being a member of the "million-a-year club", the elite group of barristers earning over a million pounds a year.[13] In a letter to the Guardian in 2001, he compared his "puny £1.6 million a year" to the vastly larger amounts that comparable individuals in business, sports and entertainment are paid.[13]
For a four week trial (and all the preparatory work) in the UK in 2005 he charged £800,000 plus VAT to represent the UK government in the largest class action in the UK, brought by 49,500 private shareholders of the collapsed national railway infrastructure company Railtrack.[14] The government had money and reputation at stake. The case examined some of the actions of the government, especially of former transport secretary Stephen Byers MP. Byers became the only former Cabinet Minister to be cross-examined in the High Court in relation to his actions in modern times. The UK Government won the case.
[edit] Historian
Sumption's narrative history of The Hundred Years War between England and France (so far three volumes, 1991–2009) has been widely praised as 'earning a place alongside Sir Steven Runciman's A History of the Crusades according to Frederic Raphael, and as a work that 'deploys an enormous variety of documentary material ... and interprets it with imaginative and intelligent sympathy' and is 'elegantly written' (Rosamond McKitterick, Evening Standard); for Allan Massie it is 'An enterprise on a truly Victorian scale ... What is most impressive about this work, apart from the author's mastery of his material and his deployment of it, is his political intelligence'.[15] There are planned to be five volumes altogether, with Volume IV (covering the years from 1399 to 1422), expected to appear in 2015, the 600th anniversary of the battle of Agincourt.
[edit] Publications
- Pilgrimage: An Image of Medieval Religion (1975) ISBN 0-571-10339-1
- The Albigensian Crusade (1978) ISBN 0-571-11064-9
- Equality (1979, with Sir Keith Joseph) ISBN 0-7195-3651-0
- The Hundred Years War I: Trial by Battle (1991) ISBN 0-571-13895-0
- The Hundred Years War II: Trial by Fire (1999) ISBN 0-571-13896-9
- The Age of Pilgrimage: The Medieval Journey to God (2003) ISBN 1-58768-025-4
- The Hundred Years War III: Divided Houses (2009) ISBN 0-571-13897-7
[edit] Articles
Sumption, Jonathan (4 October 2008). "The pragmatic approach". The Spectator 308 (9397): 38. http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/books/2188496/the-pragmatic-approach.thtml. Retrieved 23 December 2008. Review of Patten, Chris (2008). What next? Surviving the Twenty-First Century. Allen Lane. ISBN 9780713998566.
[edit] Notable cases
- Lonrho Ltd v Shell Petroleum Co Ltd (No 1) [1980] QB 358 (subsidiary companies)
- Lipkin Gorman v Karpnale Ltd [1987] 1 WLR 987
- R v Panel on Takeovers and Mergers Ex parte Datafin Plc [1987] QB 815
- Powdrill v Watson [1995] 2 AC 394
- Re Goldcorp Exchange Ltd [1995] 1 AC 74
- Target Holdings Ltd v Redferns [1996] AC 421
- Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale v Islington LBC [1996] AC 669
- Smith New Court Securities Ltd v Citibank NA [1997] AC 254 (fraud, misrepresentation)
- South Australia Asset Management Corp v York Montague Ltd [1997] AC 191
- Bristol & West Building Society v Mothew [1998] Ch 1
- Investors Compensation Scheme Ltd v West Bromwich Building Society [1998] 1 WLR 896
- Equitable Life Assurance v Hyman [2000] 2 All ER 331
- Philip Morris Products Inc v Rothmans International Enterprises Ltd [2000] UKCLR 912 (company groups, voting rights)
- Royal Bank of Scotland plc v Etridge (No 2) [2001] UKHL 44
- Dubai Aluminium Co Ltd v Salaam [2002] UKHL 48
- HIH Casualty & General Insurance Ltd v Chase Manhattan Bank [2003] UKHL 6
- Marcic v Thames Water Utilities Ltd [2003] UKHL 66
- Wilson v First County Trust [2003] UKHL 40
- Three Rivers District Council v Bank of England [2004] 3 WLR 1274 (about the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International)
- Office of Fair Trading v Abbey National plc [2009] UKSC 6, won, representing the Barclays Bank plc.
- Stone & Rolls v Moore Stephens [2009] UKHL 39, won, representing the accountants
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Jonathan Sumption QC to be sworn in as Supreme Court Justice". Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. 10 January 2012. http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/docs/pr_1201.pdf. Retrieved 10 January 2012.
- ^ Dodd (2003).
- ^ Law Lords Department (2000).
- ^ a b Irvine (2011).
- ^ Leigh (2010).
- ^ Daily Telegraph (2008).
- ^ Brick Court Chambers website: Jonathan Sumption QC’s Full CV Retrieved: 16 October 2011
- ^ "Judiciary". Jersey Law. http://www.jerseylaw.je/Courts/Judiciary/judges.aspx. Retrieved February 2011.
- ^ East Hants Council (2007).
- ^ "Press Release:Senior Judicial Appointments". Number 10. 4 May 2011. http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/senior-judicial-appointments/.
- ^ London Gazette (2011).
- ^ "Orders approved at Privy Council 14 December 2011". Privy Council Office. http://privycouncil.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Orders-approved-at-Privy-Council-14-December-2011.pdf. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
- ^ a b Dyer (2003).
- ^ Daily Telegraph (2005).
- ^ Quotations from the selection of reviews displayed on the back of The Hundred Years War III: Divided Houses.
[edit] Sources
- Dyer, Clare (17 September 2003). "Government calls in top QC". The Guardian (London). http://politics.guardian.co.uk/kelly/story/0,13747,1043659,00.html. Retrieved 31 July 2010.
- Bowcott, Owen (4 May 2011). "Supreme court judges appointed". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/may/04/supreme-court-judges-wilson-sumption. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
- Dodd, Vikram (26 September 2003). "Ministers 'did nothing wrong' in revealing identity of Dr Kelly". The Guardian (London). http://politics.guardian.co.uk/kelly/story/0,,1050053,00.html. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
- "Government's brief is a pretty expensive silk". London: The Daily Telegraph. 30 April 2005. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/04/30/cnsilk30.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2005/04/30/ixcity.html. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
- "Obituaries: Anthony Sumption". The Daily Telegraph (London: Telegraph Media Group). 7 February 2008. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1577872/Anthony-Sumption.html. Retrieved 15 October 2011.
- Irvine, Ian (15 October 2011). "Jonathan Sumption: Donnish but deadly". The Independent (London: Independent Print Ltd). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/jonathan-sumption-donnish-but-deadly-2370949.html. Retrieved 15 October 2011.
- Law Lords Department (18 May 2000). "House of Lords Judgments - Three Rivers District Council and Others (Original Appellants and Cross-Respondents) v. Governor and Company of The Bank of England (Original Respondents and Cross-Appellants)". Hrothgar.co.uk. http://www.hrothgar.co.uk/WebCases/hol/reports/00/49.htm. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
- "Royal Warrant granting the courtesy title of 'Lord' or 'Lady' to all Supreme Court Justices who do not already hold peerages". London Gazette. 1 April 2011. http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/59746/notices/1333795. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
- "Sumption & another v London Borough of Greenwich (2007) EWHC 2776 (Admin)". East Hants Council Planning Dept. http://planningdevelopment.easthants.gov.uk/docsonlinefiles/49396_1.pdf. Retrieved 11 May 2011.
- Leigh, David (15 March 2010). "Taxpayer paid £80,000 to barrister in Binyam Mohamed case". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/15/taxpayer-barrister-binyam-mohamed-charge. Retrieved 16 October 2011.
- "Jonathan Sumption QC". The Lawyer (London: Centaur Media). 18 December 2000. http://www.thelawyer.com/jonathan-sumption-qc/106137.article. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
- Rozenberg, Joshua (23 March 2011). "Supreme Court: runners, riders and delays". Standpoint (London: Social Affairs Unit). http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/3795. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
- Rozenberg, Joshua (6 April 2011). "Sumption plays hard to get". Standpoint (London: Social Affairs Unit). http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/3847. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
[edit] External links
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