After retiring from the judiciary in 2008,Bingham focused on teaching,writing,and lecturing on legal subjects,particularly the law of human rights. His book,The Rule of Law,was published in 2010 and he was posthumously awarded the 2011 Orwell Prize for literature. The British Institute of International and Comparative Law named the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law in his honour.
He was educated at The Hawthorns prep school at Bletchingley,Surrey,where he was Head Boy,and then from 1947 the Cumbrian public school Sedbergh School (Winder House),where he was described as the "brightest boy in 100 years". He enjoyed history,took up fell-walking,and developed a strong attachment to the Church of England;he was a Head of House and a School Prefect. He won an open scholarship to Balliol College,Oxford,first undertaking National Service from 1952 to 1954,as a second lieutenant in the Royal Ulster Rifles serving in Hong Kong. He enjoyed his time in the Army and considered pursuing a military career before opting to serve in the Territorial Army for the next five years.[6]
He went up to Oxford in 1954 and initially read Philosophy,Politics,and Economics,but after two terms switched to History. He was awarded one of the first William Coolidge Pathfinder Awards[7][8] and spent the summer of 1955 in the US. He entered Gray's Inn during his second year at Oxford,with a view to becoming a barrister.[9] He was elected President of BalliolJunior Common Room in his third year. He won the Gibbs Prize for Modern History in 1957 and was awarded first-class honours in finals. He also tried,unsuccessfully,for fellowship by examination at All Souls College. After graduation,he read for the Bar as Eldon Law Scholar and achieved a Certificate of Honour,coming top of Bar finals in 1959.[10]
In 1963,he married Elizabeth Loxley,a Somerville graduate whose great-uncle was Major Gerald Loxley,[11] of the Loxley family of Northcott Court,Hertfordshire;[12] they had one daughter Catherine Elizabeth (born 1965),known as Kate,and two sons Thomas Henry (Harry,born 1967) and Christopher Toby (Kit,born 1969).[13] Kate has been married since 1992 to Jesse Norman,then a Conservative government minister.[14][15]
In 1965,Bingham and his wife Elizabeth acquired a cottage at Cornhill,near Boughrood in Powys;he died there in 2010.[16]
He was created a life peer as Baron Bingham of Cornhill,of Boughrood in the County of Powys,on 4 June 1996.[19] He continued as Lord Chief Justice until 2000 when he was appointed Senior Law Lord. This position had customarily been held by the longest-serving Law Lord. Bingham was followed in the office of Lord Chief Justice by Lord Woolf,who had succeeded him as Master of the Rolls in 1996.
Bingham was a strong advocate of divorcing the judicial branch of the House of Lords from its legislative functions by setting up a new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom,which was accomplished under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. The title of the office he held was redesignated as "President of the Supreme Court" upon that court's establishment in October 2009,after Bingham had retired in July 2008. He is understood to have been "very sorry" not to serve as its inaugural president.[20]
Bingham oversaw an increasing workload of constitutional affairs after Scottish devolution,and human rights matters after the Human Rights Act came into force,and assembled the first nine-judge panels for important cases since 1910,including the Belmarsh Case in December 2004 which reviewed the regime for indefinite detention of foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism who could not be deported due to the risk of torture in their home countries,holding that the regimes might breach the Human Rights Act.
Bingham was one of two Law Lords to dissent from the decision to overturn the High Court and Court of Appeal decisions to quash an Order-in-Council,dismissing all impediments to the rights of the Chagos Islanders to return home. Bingham also presided over various decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council upholding the finding that death penalties in Belize,St Lucia,St Kitts and the Bahamas were unconstitutional.[21]
In 2009,Bingham became involved with Reprieve,a UK charity,[25] as well as delivering the fourth annual Jan Grodecki Lecture at the University of Leicester,entitled The House of Lords:Its Future.[26]
Retirement
Bingham remained active in retirement. On 17 November 2008,in his first major speech since retiring as Senior Law Lord,Bingham,addressing the British Institute of International and Comparative Law,disputed the legality of the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States,the United Kingdom and other countries. He said that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was "a serious violation of international law",and he accused Britain and the US of acting like a "world vigilante".
In June 2009,Bingham was interviewed by the British legal journalist Joshua Rozenberg on the subject of the rule of law in international affairs,an event arranged to raise awareness of the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. Bingham's thoughts on this subject,in particular banning of certain weapons in international conflict,were covered by various newspapers The Independent ("Top judge:use of drones intolerable")[27] and The Daily Telegraph ("Unmanned drones could be banned,says senior judge").[28] Bingham gave another interview concerning the rule of law and matters pertaining to the "British Constitution" with the charity,the Constitution Society.[29]
His book,The Rule of Law,was published by Allen Lane in 2010;it won the 2011 Orwell Prize for Literature.[30]
The Aramis [1989] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 213, the test for an implied contractual obligation is that it is necessary to reflect the business parties' expectations
Ex Parte Unilever, an administrative law case concerning judicial review stating "the categories of unfairness are not closed, and precedent should act as a guide, not a cage"
R v Wang [2005] 1 WLR 661, [2005] UKHL 9, [2005] 1 All ER 782, [2005] 2 Cr App R 8, 'there are no circumstances in which a judge is entitled to direct a jury to return a verdict of guilty'
R (Williamson) v Secretary of State for Education and Employment [2005] UKHL 15, "the means chosen to achieve this aim are appropriate and not disproportionate in their adverse impact on parents who believe that carefully-controlled administration of corporal punishment to a mild degree can be beneficial" [2005] UKHL 15
Jackson v Attorney General [2005] UKHL 56, challenge to the fox hunting ban using the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949
R v Davis [2008] UKHL 36, anonymity of witness evidence
R (Daly) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2001] UKHL 26 "The infringement of prisoners' rights to maintain the confidentiality of their privileged legal correspondence is greater than is shown to be necessary to serve the legitimate public objectives already identified"
In 2010, shortly before Bingham died, the British Institute of International and Comparative Law established The Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, a body solely dedicated to the promotion and enhancement of the rule of law worldwide.
In an interview on 7 February 2014, Nick Phillips, successor to Bingham as Senior Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, remarked that "...Tom Bingham was the most wonderful man; he was head and shoulders above everybody else in the Law, in my view...yes, just outstanding...his clarity of thought, his academic knowledge. I think almost everyone would say that he was, you know, the great lawyer of his generation."[31]
Arms
Coat of arms of Tom Bingham, Baron Bingham of Cornhill
A Running Duck Vert beaked and legged and grasping in the dexter foot a Key wards upwards and outwards Or
Symbolism
Bingham's arms pun the word "Cornhill", the per chevron formation suggesting a hill; the griffin alludes to Gray's Inn and is depicted holding a key as a play on his wife's maiden name of Loxley; the Bingham family keenly breed running ducks.
Stephen Sedley, 'Bingham, Thomas Henry, Baron Bingham of Cornhill (1933–2010)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Jan 2014 accessed 10 July 2014
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