LORD DENNING. A FORMER MASTER OF THE ROLLS. 1889-1999.
Lord Denning, British Judge, Dies. Investigated Profumo Security Scandal, Decided Notable Cases
From News Services Sunday, March 7, 1999.
LONDON. Lord Denning, 100,
one of Britain's longest serving and most respected appeal judges, died March
5
at a hospital in Winchester, England. The cause of death was not reported.
He served 38 years
on the bench, the last 20 as Master of the Rolls, the head of the Court of Appeal.
Lord Denning had a reputation as a legal innovator who did not feel restricted
by literal interpretations of statutes.
"He was always the soul of courtesy, helping out young barristers or someone with a hopeless case -- and sometimes I was both," said Prime Minister Tony Blair, who appeared before Denning as a young barrister.
"His judgements were a model of lucidity. He was prepared to use the law for its true purpose -- in the interests of fairness and justice." Among his notable decisions, Lord Denning ruled that the government did not have the right to prevent Sir Freddie Laker from operating his cut-price Skytrain service to New York, a decision that ushered in low-cost air travel across the Atlantic.
He also helped draft a law that prevented manufacturers and suppliers from voiding a buyer's basic rights by the small print in their warranty forms.
Lord Denning was pushed into retirement in 1982 after commenting in his book, "What Next in the Law," that the English "are no longer a homogenous race. . . . Some of them come from countries where bribery and graft are accepted as part of life, and stealing is a virtue so long as you're not found out."
The publisher withdrew the book. Lord Denning publicly apologised and said he abhorred the idea that anyone was a second-class citizen.
In 1980, Lord Denning quashed a civil suit brought by six men convicted of Irish Republican Army bombings in Birmingham, rejecting their claims that they had been beaten and abused by police.
"If the six men win,
it will mean that the police were guilty of perjury, that they were guilty of
violence and threats, that the confessions were involuntary and were improperly
admitted in evidence and that the convictions were erroneous," Lord Denning
said in his judgement. "This is such an appalling vista that every sensible
person in the land would say, 'it
cannot be right that these actions should go any further.' "
However, the six men were released and their convictions overturned in 1991 after the Court of Appeal ruled that police had fabricated evidence and that scientific tests used by the prosecution were unreliable.
In 1963, Lord Denning was appointed to investigate the security scandal caused by War Minister John Profumo's affair with call-girl Christine Keeler. Denning concluded that national security had not been compromised, but he faulted Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, saying he and his colleagues failed in their duty to dig out the truth after rumours circulated about Profumo.
Mandy Rice-Davies, Keeler's friend, said Lord Denning was "the nicest judge I've ever met."
John Mortimer, a lawyer and creator of "Rumpole of the Bailey," praised Lord Denning in 1993.
"For all his faults and fascinating contradictions, Denning was a great judge and is an irresistible man," Mortimer wrote. "He remains part of a dying breed, the great English eccentric with a heart almost entirely of gold."
Lord Denning's last case had to do with cabbage seeds, and the judgement was typical of his style: short, crisp sentences in a language accessible to lay people.
Reporters had taken bets whether Lord Denning would quote Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," and he did.
He wrote: "The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things -- not of cabbages and kings, but of cabbages and whatnots."
Alfred Thompson Denning was born neither into wealth nor privilege, in Hampshire, southern England.
One of a village draper's six children, "Tom" as he was nicknamed, won a scholarship to Oxford University, where he gained first-class degrees in mathematics and law. He was created a baron in 1957 and appointed to the bench at the early age of 45.
As he stepped down from the bench at the age of 83, he quipped: "I want to go while I'm still at my peak."
He then embarked on a new career, with an ear-trumpet, as the most dynamic octogenarian in the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament.
He never smoked or drank alcohol, although he did enjoy fish and chips. He put his longevity down to a healthy lifestyle.
Lord Denning's first wife, Mary Harvey, died in 1941, and his second wife, Joan Start, died in 1992. Survivors include a son from his first marriage, Robert, a professor of chemistry at Oxford University.