The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The lord chancellor is appointed by the sovereign on the advice of the prime minister. Prior to the union of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain, there were separate lord chancellors for the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland; there were Lord Chancellors of Ireland until 1922.
James Brian Edward Hutton, Baron Hutton, PC was a British Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.
The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is the head of the Judiciary of England and Wales and the president of the Courts of England and Wales.
John Clarke MacDermott, Baron MacDermott,, PC (NI), was a Northern Irish politician, barrister, and judge who served as Attorney-General for Northern Ireland, a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, and Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. He was the first law lord to be appointed from Northern Ireland.
A recorder is a judicial officer in England and Wales and some other common law jurisdictions.
The Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) is an independent commission that selects candidates for judicial office in courts and tribunals in England and Wales and for some tribunals whose jurisdiction extends to Scotland or Northern Ireland.
There are various levels of judiciary in England and Wales—different types of courts have different styles of judges. They also form a strict hierarchy of importance, in line with the order of the courts in which they sit, so that judges of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales are given more weight than district judges sitting in county courts and magistrates' courts. On 1 April 2020 there were 3,174 judges in post in England and Wales. Some judges with United Kingdom-wide jurisdiction also sit in England and Wales, particularly Justices of the United Kingdom Supreme Court and members of the tribunals judiciary.
Robert Lynd Erskine Lowry, Baron Lowry, PC, PC (NI), was a Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. Knighted in 1971, he was created a life peer as Baron Lowry, of Crossgar in the County of Down, on 18 July 1979, in the early months of the Thatcher government.
Sir Frederick Paul Girvan PC is a retired Northern Irish judge. He was educated at Larne Grammar School, Belfast Royal Academy, Clare College, Cambridge (BA) and Queen's University, Belfast.
The Bar of Northern Ireland is the professional association of barristers for Northern Ireland, with over 600 members. It is based in the Bar Library, beside the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast, together with the Bar Council of Northern Ireland and the Executive Council. The Executive Council has taken on many of the functions formerly exercised by the Benchers of the Inn of Court of Northern Ireland, which was established at a meeting of the Bench and Bar held on 11 January 1926.
The Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the legal profession and courts of England and Wales. The Act was the culmination of a series of reports and reforms that started with the Benson Commission in the 1970s, and significantly changed the way that the legal profession and court system worked.
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom are the judges of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom other than the president and the deputy president. The Supreme Court is the highest court of the United Kingdom for civil and criminal matters in the jurisdictions of England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Judges are appointed by the King on the advice of the Prime Minister, who receives recommendations from a selection commission.
In the United Kingdom, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) is a judicial body, independent of the British government, which hears complaints about surveillance by public bodies—in fact, "the only Tribunal to whom complaints about the Intelligence Services can be directed".
Sir Rabinder Singh KC, styled The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Singh, is a British Court of Appeal judge and President of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, formerly a High Court judge of the Queen's Bench Division, a King's Counsel and barrister, formerly a founding member of Matrix Chambers and a legal academic.
Sir Michael John Burton, styled Mr Justice Burton, is a former judge in the High Court of England and Wales. He was the President of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal between October 2013 and September 2018, having been vice-president since its inception in 2000, the Chair of the Central Arbitration Committee for over 17 years and the former President of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (2002–2005), which was reformed under his presidency.
Sir Patrick Coghlin, PC, is a retired member of the Court of Appeal of Northern Ireland.
Sir Stephen John Irwin, is a retired British judge and barrister. From September 2016 until October 2020, he was a Lord Justice of Appeal. From May 2006 to 2016, he served as a judge of the High Court of England and Wales.
Dame Siobhan Roisin Keegan is a Northern Irish judge who has been Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland since September 2021. She was formerly a judge of the High Court of Northern Ireland from October 2015 until her appointment as Lord Chief Justice, prior to which, she practised as a barrister specialising in family law.
Sir John Gillen, PC, previously known as The Rt Hon Lord Justice Gillen, and before that as Mr Justice Gillen, is a Privy Councillor and was one of the Lords Justices of Appeal of Northern Ireland, from September 2014-November 2017.
