Monday 30 October 2023Lord Sumption on the Rule of Law and Human Rights
The Right Honourable Lord Sumption, OBE, FRHistS, FSA needs little introduction: historian and Fellow of Magdelan College, Oxford, starred advocate and Queen’s Counsel at the age of 38, counsel in many leading cases over more than 30 years; appointed directly from the bar to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and the Privy Council in 2012. He is a music lover, who sits on the board of English National Opera, and a linguist who speaks French and Italian and reads Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Latin. The Guardian once described him as “the Brain of Britain”.
In 2019, Lord Sumption delivered the BBC Reith Lectures on the relationship between politics and law, exploring over five lectures the expansion of law, the ability of democracy to accommodate opposing opinions and interests, human rights, and the pros and cons of written and unwritten constitutions.
In 2023, at a time when democratic and political institutions are under stress in many places around the World, this is a timely lecture on the roles, importance, and limits of the Rule of Law from a former Law Lord – one who has seen those tensions play out in the United Kingdom (e.g., in R (on the application of Miller and another) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union) – and historian, with an historian’s particular ability to bring perspective to contemporary debate.
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