The Scottish Judge Whose Job Is On the Line When Britain Leaves the EU
The Scottish Judge Whose Job Is On the Line When Britain Leaves the EU
(Bloomberg) -- Brexit is clearly a sore point for Ian Forrester, the Scot who risks being shunted out of his job as the U.K.’s judge at the European Union’s General Court.
Nestling on the bookshelves of his bright corner office in Luxembourg sits a spoof Enid Blyton children’s book “Five on Brexit Island.” Perhaps more poignant is “In Limbo,” a compilation of personal testimonies of behavior people experienced following the Brexit vote, for which he’s writing a review.
The 74-year-old has shed his lawyerly discretion to opine on his country’s planned departure from the EU -- even though he speaks with precision about the rupture as though it’s still a hypothetical event -- preferring to use “if” rather than “when.”
“It’s dismaying that there have been so many episodes of hostility to foreigners,” he says in an interview with Bloomberg. “Speaking as a citizen, I know foreigners in the U.K. who have experienced ugliness in their daily lives,” he says. “Those phenomena give me concern and writing and teaching have been comforts.”
“This portion of our history has caused, and is causing, deep anxiety for hundreds of thousands of people,” Forrester says. He speaks of the “worry” and the “pain” he feels for younger people or the less advantaged than himself, who would no longer benefit from the EU.
For them “it was normal to regard it as a place to go and seek a job, to work, to buy a house, to open a business, to take a pension, to get medical treatment, to be decently treated” without discrimination.
EU law has given people those rights automatically, without them needing to ask authorities for approval, he says.
“There is a great difference between having a right and having a right to request the exercise of a discretion,” he says. “If you’re well-dressed and articulate and confident, you can deal with officials and you’ll get there somehow, but some people worry about being in good order with public authority.”
Antitrust Battle
The former law firm partner was appointed to take over from the U.K.’s outgoing EU General Court judge Nicholas Forwood less than a year before Britain voted “yes” to Brexit in June 2016.
Forwood joined White & Case in Brussels as a counsel, the law firm where Forrester made a name for himself not just as one of the lead lawyers in Microsoft Corp.’s precedent-setting EU antitrust battle, but also for leading the firm’s pro bono activities from 2010.
Forrester’s office is stacked with memorabilia, including an unopened bottle of Virgin Cola and a framed packaging of a rare copy of Microsoft’s Windows XP N on the wall -- the unsuccessful version of the operating system without media player technology that the company was forced to sell as a result of a then record 2004 EU antitrust fine.
He isn’t just an EU law specialist. He’s also an elder of the Church of Scotland in Brussels and has shared his fears over Brexit there. Last month he warned them that “the crust of civility and tolerance which used to mark public life has cracked and poisonous vapors are coming through the cracks.”
‘Effort and Grind’
Solutions will be found, says Forrester, but it’s all “taking a lot of effort and grind” while important things which need addressing get neglected. “Brexit is sucking the air out of political discourse.”
A no-deal scenario will likely also cut short the term of Christopher Vajda, Britain’s judge at the EU Court of Justice, the bloc’s top court. While Forrester’s term would under normal circumstances run until Aug. 31 this year, Vajda recently had his term renewed until Oct. 6, 2024, “or on the date of withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, whichever date comes first.”
The circumstances are now wildly different to those when David Edward -- his mentor and good friend -- was appointed as the first British member of the court where Forrester now sits.
Edward made history by entering the lower EU court as the first British judge and a fellow Scot. Forrester may make history by being its last.
Forrester’s eyes light up when he speaks of the court as a “special” place. But as British Prime Minister Theresa May reaches out to find a Brexit deal that’s acceptable to Parliament, Forrester knows that the future of his own role -- as with other U.K. colleagues at the court -- is in the hands of others.
“It’s not for judges to make political decisions,” he says.
To contact the reporter on this story: Stephanie Bodoni in Luxembourg at sbodoni@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Peter Chapman, Stephanie Bodoni
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