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The Prorogue Gallery of Brexit Judges

The Prorogue Gallery of Brexit Judges

(Bloomberg) -- For three years, Brexit has divided voters, politicians and judges in the U.K. This week, the Supreme Court in London will try to reach a consensus over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s suspension of Parliament, a decision that may affect a no-deal departure.

Courts in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland delivered contradictory rulings on whether Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament was lawful or a political move to stymie lawmakers before the Oct. 31 deadline.  On Tuesday, several days of hearings will start as the 11-member panel tries to reconcile rulings from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The judges, selected from the 12 members of the full court, will be forced to rule on issues that politicians have failed to address since the June 2016 referendum that started Britain’s exit from the European Union.  Earlier decisions have brought marches in the street and newspaper headlines referring to some judges as `Enemies of the People.’

Here is what you need to know about the judges hearing the case:

Brenda Hale

The Prorogue Gallery of Brexit Judges

President

Age: 74

Year Appointed: 2009

Hale is a renowned academic, law reformer and judge, specializing in family law. In 2017, she became the court’s first female president since it replaced the House of Lords as the highest judicial authority 10 years ago. She has called for more diversity in the judiciary – where three-quarters of Supreme Court justices are male and all are white.

Before Hale became the court’s top judge, she was on the panel that ruled in 2017 that Parliament would have to approve government’s decision to notify the European Union that it would start the exit process. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Hale said she was “proud” of the case, because it was a classic constitutional issue “reminiscent of the 17th-century battle between Parliament and the King.”

Robert Reed

The Prorogue Gallery of Brexit Judges

Deputy President

Age: 63

Year Appointed: 2012

Reed, one of two Scottish justices on the Supreme Court, will succeed Hale when she retires in January. He was one of the three judges who dissented in the 2017 Brexit case.

Before working as an advocate and then a judge in both Scotland and England, primarily in commercial matters, he completed his doctorate researching the legal limits of government assistance to industry at University of Oxford.

Brian Kerr

The Prorogue Gallery of Brexit Judges

Age: 71

Year Appointed: 2009

Kerr was the most senior judge in Northern Ireland, only the second Catholic to achieve this. He is the only representative from his country on the Supreme Court. He voted with the majority in the 2017 case.

Nicholas Wilson
 

The Prorogue Gallery of Brexit Judges


Age: 74

Year Appointed: 2011

A former appeals judge and family law specialist, Wilson has been a critic of the government’s cuts to legal aid, which, he has argued, deny many people access to justice. He voted with the majority in the 2017 case.

Robert Carnwath

The Prorogue Gallery of Brexit Judges

Age: 74

Year Appointed: 2012

Carnwath is a former appeals judge with a particular interest in environmental issues. He was also one of the three dissenting judges in the 2017 ruling relating to Brexit, saying there wasn’t a direct precedent for withdrawing from a treaty like that with the EU.

Patrick Hodge

The Prorogue Gallery of Brexit Judges

Age: 66

Year Appointed: 2013

Hodge is the second of the Scottish judges hearing the case. He has had a varied career, including roles with the Department of Energy and Inland Revenue, and dealing with commercial law, judicial review and property law. He voted with the majority in the 2017 case.

Jill Black

The Prorogue Gallery of Brexit Judges

Age: 65

Year Appointed: 2017

Black is another former appeals judge, who was a founding author of the definitive guide to family law in England and Wales. In a 2017 interview with the London-based Times newspaper, Black said she’s inspired by T.S. Eliot’s “Collected Poems“ because “whichever of life’s riddles I am trying to solve, I find something there to help.” She joined the Supreme Court after it ruled on the 2017 case.

David Lloyd-Jones

The Prorogue Gallery of Brexit Judges

Age: 67

Year Appointed: 2017

As a lawyer, Lloyd-Jones’s practice included international law and EU law. As well as litigating, he spent 22 years as an academic, mostly at the University of Cambridge. In 1999, he acted as a legal adviser to the House of Lords, then the highest judicial authority in the U.K., on whether former Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet should be extradited to Spain. He joined the Supreme Court after it ruled on the 2017 case.

Philip Sales

The Prorogue Gallery of Brexit Judges

Age: 57

Year Appointed: 2019

Sales is a former appeals court judge who as an attorney defending former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision not to hold a public inquiry into the Iraq War.

The right-wing Daily Mail newspaper controversially printed front-page photos of Sales and two other judges above the headline “Enemies of the People,” after the three-man panel made the first ruling that Parliament had a say in when the government formally started the Brexit process. The ruling was backed by the Supreme Court, which he joined after 2017 case.

Mary Arden

The Prorogue Gallery of Brexit Judges

Age: 72

Year Joined: 2018

Part of the third generation to become a lawyer in her family, Arden's practice specialized in company law. She later served as an appeals judge alongside her husband, Jonathan Mance, making them the first married couple to do so. She also succeeded him on the Supreme Court. For 13 years, Arden was in charge of international judicial relations for England and Wales. She is also an ad hoc judge for the European Court of Human Rights. She joined the Supreme Court after it ruled on the 2017 case. 

David Kitchen

The Prorogue Gallery of Brexit Judges

Age: 64

Year Joined: 2018

Kitchen's legal career focused on intellectual property, becoming the appellate judge responsible for those issues in 2011. He has advocated improvements in the law so that it keeps pace with technological progress. He joined the Supreme Court after it ruled on the 2017 case.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Elser at celser@bloomberg.net

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