A Glance in the Judicial Rear-View Mirror: 1996--2017 from a Judge's Perspective

I became a Judge in October 1996 and stood down in September 2017. At least viewed from today's perspective, the 21 years I spent on the bench seem to have been a pretty eventful, almost a revolutionary, period for the United Kingdom in terms of the constitution, politics, the rule of law, and the judiciary itself. When asked by the Editor to write a foreword for this volume, it therefore seemed to me to be appropriate to provide a brief review of those changes. About two-thirds of my judicial career was in England and Wales (over seven years as a High Court judge, three years as a Court of Appeal judge, and three years as Master of the Rolls) and about one-third as a United Kingdom judge (over two years as a Law Lord and nearly five years as President of the Supreme Court). Accordingly, my impressions, which inevitably reflect my experience, will tend to be rather Anglo-centric – and, to a lesser extent, Cymro-centric.