Thomas H Bingham, Baron Bingham of Cornhill [13 Oct 1933 – 11 Sep 2010]

[mcgillianaire]

While I was away in Amreeka, I completely missed the sad news about his death from lung cancer at 76. Bingham has been described by many as the greatest British jurist since the Second World War. That is lofty praise indeed. Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, calls him her hero and recalls a particular quote from a speech he gave to Liberty's conference last year in defence of the Human Rights Act:

"Which of these rights, I ask, would we wish to discard? Are any of them trivial, superfluous, unnecessary? Are any of them un-British? There may be those who would like to live in a country where these rights are not protected but I am not of their number".

Hear, hear. It is perhaps fitting that his final great contribution was a book titled The Rule of Law released earlier this year, a lucid exposition of a complex topic made accessible to the wider public by building upon a famous speech made on the same subject in 2006. Some would even say he was instrumental in the creation of the independent Supreme Court which opened in 2009. He will be sorely missed.

OTHER LINKS:
--The Guardian Obituary