Editing John Laws (judge)

{{short description|English jurist}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}

{{More citations needed|date=January 2025}}{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix    = [[The Right Honourable]]
| name                = Sir John Laws
| honorific-suffix    = 
| image               = Lord Justice Laws 2012.jpg
| imagesize           = 
| caption             = 
| office              = [[Lord Justice of Appeal]]
| term_start          = 1999
| term_end            = 2016
| monarch             = 
| predecessor         = 
| successor           = 
| office2             = [[High Court judge (England and Wales)|Justice of the High Court]]
| term_start2         = 1992
| term_end2           = 1998
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1945|05|10|df=y}}
| birth_place         = 
| death_date          = {{death date and age|2020|04|05|1945|05|10|df=y}}
| death_place         = [[Chelsea and Westminster Hospital]], [[Chelsea, London]], England
| restingplace        = 
| birthname           = John Grant McKenzie Laws
| nationality         = British
| spouse              = Sophie Marshall
| residence           = 
| alma_mater          = [[Exeter College, Oxford|Exeter College]], [[University of Oxford|Oxford]]
| occupation          = Judge
| profession          = [[Barristers in England and Wales|Barrister]]
| religion            = 
| signature           = 
| website             = 
| footnotes           = 
}}
'''Sir John Grant McKenzie Laws''' (10 May 1945 – 5 April 2020) was a [[Lord Justice of Appeal]]. He served from 1999 to 2016. He was the Goodhart [[Visiting Professor]] of Legal Science at the [[University of Cambridge]], and an [[Honorary Fellow]] of [[Robinson College]], Cambridge.

==Early life==
Laws was born on 10 May 1945,<ref name=Birth>{{cite web|title=Birthday's today|url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/archive/2013-5-10.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130510045939/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/archive/2013-5-10.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= 10 May 2013 |work=The Daily Telegraph|access-date=29 April 2014|date=10 May 2013|quote=Lord Justice Laws 68 }}</ref> the son of Dr Frederic Laws and his wife Dr Margaret Ross, ''née'' McKenzie, the daughter of the Congregational minister and academic [[John Grant McKenzie]].<ref>[https://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-23973 "Laws, Rt Hon. Sir John (Grant McKenzie)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200302102128/https://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-23973 |date=2 March 2020 }}, ''Who's Who'' (online ed., Oxford University Press, December 2019). Retrieved 2 March 2020.</ref> He was educated at [[Chorister School, Durham|Durham Chorister School]], and as a King's Scholar at [[Durham School]]. He studied at [[Exeter College, Oxford]] as a Senior Open Classical Scholar, receiving a [[British undergraduate degree classification|First Class]] BA in 1967, and an [[Master of Arts (Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin)|MA]] in 1976. He became an honorary [[fellow]] of the college in 2000.<ref name="whoswho">{{cite web|title=LAWS, Rt Hon. Sir John (Grant McKenzie)|url=http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U23973|work=[[Who's Who (UK)|Who's Who]]|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|date=December 2008|access-date=25 July 2009}}</ref>

==Legal career==
He was [[called to the Bar]] at the [[Inner Temple]] in 1970,<ref name="hmcourts">{{cite web|title=Info about – Court of Appeal Civil Division – The Court of Appeal|url=http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/cms/1287.htm|publisher=[[Her Majesty's Courts Service]]|access-date=25 July 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100718191227/http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/cms/1287.htm|archive-date=18 July 2010}}</ref> and appointed a [[Bencher]] in 1985. He was appointed [[First Junior Treasury Counsel (Common Law)]] in 1984, and a [[Recorder (judge)|Recorder]] in 1985, holding both positions until his appointment to the [[High Court of Justice|High Court]] in 1992.

===Judicial career===
Laws was appointed a [[High Court judge (England and Wales)|High Court Judge]] in 1992, serving in the [[High Court of Justice#Queen's Bench Division|Queen's Bench Division]], and was [[knight bachelor|knighted]] at this time. He served until 1998, and in 1999 was appointed to the [[Court of Appeal of England and Wales|Court of Appeal]] as a [[Lord Justice of Appeal]] and appointed to the [[Privy Council (United Kingdom)|Privy Council]].

====Notable decisions====

''[[Thoburn v Sunderland City Council]]'' 2002 – Perhaps Sir John's most famous decision, and extremely controversial in the public law sphere.{{According to whom|date=October 2021}} In it he recognises principles in common law contrary to parliamentary sovereignty. The foundation of his decision was on four propositions:<ref>[http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2002/195.html bailii.org – England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions: 2002 EWHC 195 (Admin)]</ref>
<blockquote>
# All the specific rights and obligations which EU law creates are by the [[European Communities Act 1972 (UK)|ECA]] incorporated into our domestic law and rank supreme: that is, anything in our substantive law inconsistent with any of these rights and obligations is abrogated or must be modified to avoid the inconsistency. This is true even where the inconsistent municipal provision is contained in [[primary legislation]]. 
# The ECA is a constitutional statute: that is, it cannot be [[Implied repeal|impliedly repealed]]. A constitutional statute can, however, be explicitly repealed by a subsequent statute.
# The truth of (2) is derived, not from EU law, but purely from the law of England: the common law recognises a category of [[constitutional statutes]]. 
# The fundamental legal basis of the United Kingdom's relationship with the EU rests with the domestic, not the European, legal powers. In the event, which no doubt would never happen in the real world, that a European measure was seen to be repugnant to a fundamental or constitutional right guaranteed by the law of England, a question would arise whether the general words of the ECA were sufficient to incorporate the measure and give it overriding effect in domestic law. But that is very far from this case. 
</blockquote>

''[[R v Somerset County Council, ex parte Fewings]]'' – Sir John sat in the first instance hearing of this historic case, concerning the legality of a decision made to prohibit hunting on a small area of land which the council had acquired and was argued to maintain under s120(1)(b) [[Local Government Act 1972]].

''[[McFarlane v Relate Avon Ltd]]'' – Sir John attracted considerable press attention for stating "The promulgation of law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds [...] is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary." This was in response to a witness statement submitted by former [[Archbishop of Canterbury]] [[George Carey|Lord Carey]] that Christians should be afforded special protections under equality legislation on the grounds of earnestly held religious belief.

==Constitutional theory==
Sir John Laws is noted for his extrajudicial writings in the [[Law review|journal]], ''[[Public Law (journal)|Public Law]]''. His most notable contribution, "Law and Democracy", asserts that the constitution would be undemocratic if it gave all the power under it to the elected government. Therefore, it is the constitution, and not Parliament, that should be sovereign in the British constitution.  He posits that the constitution must create a "higher-order law"  in which human rights and constitutional fundamentals in a democracy can be protected by the courts against the abuses of government. This position stems from a fundamental distrust of the political constitution in holding the executive to account. It is similar in form to [[Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone|Quintin Hogg, Lord Hailsham]]'s claim that in Britain there is an "[[elective dictatorship]]". Sir John does not see this shift to the legal sphere as being anti-democratic because judges uphold apolitical values that no politician would contest and are above the arguments that take place in the political sphere between politicians of political parties.

These statements are certainly controversial and have been fiercely contested by academics such as John Griffith and Martin Loughlin, both professors at the [[London School of Economics]]. The essential arguments made by these authors are to the effect that the metaphysical principles that Sir John cites are highly contentious. A good example of this is Laws' love of freedom of expression. When is it right for racist or sexist comments to be illegal? Whilst for Griffith it should be up to a democratically elected legislature to decide such tricky moral issues, for Laws it is firmly a matter of law for the judges to decide. The problem with the latter approach, according to Griffith, stems from the fact that judges cannot be removed if the decisions they make are judged to be wrong by citizens of a polity. For Laws, on the other hand, such counter-majoritarianism is a beneficial aspect of the law, which acts to protect those that are vulnerable in society against the tyranny of the majority.

==Personal life==
[[File:Sir John Laws 2017.jpg|thumb|left|Laws in 2017]]
Sir John married Sophie Susan Sydenham Cole Marshall in 1973, with whom he had one daughter.   Lady Laws died in 2017.<ref>[http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thetimes-uk/obituary.aspx?n=sophie-susan-sydenham-cole-laws&pid=185991352 Lady Sophie Susan Sydenham Cole Laws]</ref> He was a member of the [[Garrick Club]]. He was the maternal uncle of political adviser [[Dominic Cummings]].<ref name="The New Statesman">{{cite news |last1=Lambert |first1=Harry |title=Dominic Cummings: The Machiavel in Downing Street |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/09/dominic-cummings-machiavel-downing-street |access-date=5 April 2020 |work=New Statesman|date=25 September 2019}}</ref>

Sir John Laws was the [[Visitor]] at [[Cumberland Lodge]] since 2004.<ref>[http://www.cumberlandlodge.ac.uk/aboutus/trustees_of_cumberland_lodge Cumberland Lodge: Trustees] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110404015647/http://www.cumberlandlodge.ac.uk/aboutus/trustees_of_cumberland_lodge |date=4 April 2011 }}</ref>

On 5 April 2020, he died in [[Chelsea and Westminster Hospital]], where he was originally being treated for [[sepsis]] and other conditions, due to health complications from [[COVID-19]].<ref name="Booth">{{cite news |last1=Booth |first1=Robert |title=Retired judge and Cummings' uncle Sir John Laws dies after contracting Covid-19 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/apr/05/retired-senior-judge-sir-john-laws-dies-after-contracting-coronavirus |access-date=5 April 2020 |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=5 April 2020}}</ref>

==Writings==
* ''[https://law.exeter.ac.uk/v8media/facultysites/hass/law/imeges/hamlyn/Sir_John_Laws_hamlyn_lecture.pdf The Common Law Constitution]'' (2014)
* ''[https://www.academia.edu/87617975/John_Laws_The_Constitutional_Balance The Constitutional Balance]'' (2021)

==References==
{{Reflist}}

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[[Category:1945 births]]
[[Category:2020 deaths]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford]]
[[Category:21st-century English judges]]
[[Category:Lord justices of appeal]]
[[Category:People educated at Durham School]]
[[Category:Queen's Bench Division judges]]
[[Category:Members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council]]
[[Category:People educated at the Chorister School, Durham]]
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[[Category:Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in England]]
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