Johan van Zyl Steyn, Baron Steyn, PC (15 August 1932 – 28 November 2017) was a

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

judge, until September 2005 a

Law Lord Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, commonly known as Law Lords, were judges appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 to the British House of Lords, as a committee of the House, effectively to exercise the judicial functions of the House ...

. He sat in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminst ...

as a

crossbencher A crossbencher is an independent or minor party member of some legislatures, such as the British House of Lords and the Parliament of Australia. They take their name from the crossbenches, between and perpendicular to the government and oppositi ...

Early life and education

Steyn was born in

Stellenbosch Stellenbosch (; )A Universal Pronounc ...

in the

Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa ( nl, Unie van Zuid-Afrika; af, Unie van Suid-Afrika; ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Tr ...

, the son of Janet Lacey Blignaut and Izak van Zyl Steyn, a professor of law at the

University of Stellenbosch Stellenbosch University ( af, Universiteit Stellenbosch) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest ext ...

. His father died before he turned three years old and he subsequently were sent to live with his paternal grandparents. He received his schooling at the

Hoërskool Jan van Riebeeck Hoërskool Jan van Riebieck is a public Afrikaans medium co-educational high school situated in Gardens in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It was founded in 1926 by J.J. Jordaan. Overview The school is situated at the f ...

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

where he matriculated in 1950. He studied law at the University of Stellenbosch before reading Law as a

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

University College, Oxford University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the unive ...

Career

He was called to the

Bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar ( ...

in South Africa in 1958 and appointed a

Senior Counsel The title of Senior Counsel or State Counsel (post-nominal letters: SC) is given to a senior lawyer in some countries that were formerly part of the British Empire. "Senior Counsel" is used in current or former Commonwealth countries or jurisdictio ...

of the

Supreme Court of South Africa The Supreme Court of South Africa was a superior court of law in South Africa from 1910 to 1997. It was made up of various provincial and local divisions with jurisdiction over specific geographical areas, and an Appellate Division which was th ...

in 1970. As a result of his opposition to

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

in his native South Africa, he settled in the UK in 1973, joining the

English Bar Barristers in England and Wales are one of the two main categories of lawyer in England and Wales, the other being solicitors. Barristers have traditionally had the role of handling cases for representation in court, both defence and prosecutio ...

and building a distinguished

international commercial law International Commercial Law is a body of legal rules, conventions, treaties, domestic legislation and commercial customs or usages, that governs international commercial or business transactions. A transaction will qualify to be international if e ...

practice. He married Susan Heard (née Lewis) in 1977, having two sons and two daughters from a previous marriage to Jean Pollard. He had eight grandchildren (from his first marriage) and three stepgrandchildren (from his second marriage). His daughter Dame Karen Steyn was appointed a High Court judge in 2019. He was appointed

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister o ...

in 1979 and was appointed a High Court Judge in 1985, receiving the customary

knighthood A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the ...

, a surprise appointment by the then

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. Th ...

Lord Hailsham Viscount Hailsham, of Hailsham in the County of Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1929 for the lawyer and Conservative politician Douglas Hogg, 1st Baron Hailsham, who twice served as Lord High Chancello ...

. He served as presiding judge of the Northern Circuit from 1989 to 1991 and was appointed

Lord Justice of Appeal A Lord Justice of Appeal or Lady Justice of Appeal is a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, the court that hears appeals from the High Court of Justice, the Crown Court and other courts and tribunals. A Lord (or Lady) Justic ...

in 1992. On 11 January 1995 he was elevated to a

Lord of Appeal in Ordinary Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, commonly known as Law Lords, were judges appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 to the British House of Lords, as a committee of the House, effectively to exercise the judicial functions of the House o ...

and was created a

life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

as Baron Steyn, of

Swafield Swafield is a village and a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village is north north east of Norwich, south south east of Cromer and north-east of London. The village lies north of the town of North Walsham. The village sits ...

in the

County of Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North ...

. As a Law Lord he achieved prominence for his liberal views and espousal of

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

. He was a fierce critic of

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

's claim to stand immune from prosecution. His record of open criticism of Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay led to pressure from the

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that he make himself unavailable for the hearing on the indefinite detention of suspects under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 that began on 4 October 2004. The decision in the latter case caused the government to review its policy of indefinite detention of terror suspects and led to the equally controversial Terrorism Bill 2005. His judicial work in the House of Lords has been instrumental in weaving the Human Rights Act 1998 into the fabric of English law. He also drew upon his background as a commercial lawyer. His Hart Lecture of May 2000 was influential in its criticism of ''

Pepper (Inspector of Taxes) v Hart Pepper or peppers may refer to: Food and spice * Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plant ** Black pepper * ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae ** Bell pepper ** Chili ...

'' [1992] UKHL 3, a landmark decision of the

on the use of

legislative history Legislative history includes any of various materials generated in the course of creating legislation, such as committee reports, analysis by legislative counsel, committee hearings, floor debates, and histories of actions taken. Legislative hi ...

statutory interpretation Statutory interpretation is the process by which courts interpret and apply legislation. Some amount of interpretation is often necessary when a case involves a statute. Sometimes the words of a statute have a plain and a straightforward meani ...

. He was one of the few senior judges to support calls for modernisation of the

English legal system English law is the common law legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly criminal law and civil law, each branch having its own courts and procedures. Principal elements of English law Although the common law has, historically, bee ...

and abolition of the role of

. While a Lord of Appeal he refrained from speaking in the House, instead expressing his views on democracy and human rights through judgments and lectures. He retired as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary on 30 September 2005. Jonathan Mance was elevated from Lord Justice of Appeal on 1 October 2005 to replace him. Since his retirement he was for a period the chairman of the human rights organisation

JUSTICE Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...

and was vocal in his criticism of

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of t ...

's government and its approach to

. He had expressed grave misgivings over the proposed powers to allow detention without trial and about the use of existing anti-terror powers.

Death

On 10th October 2021 as part of the traditional 'Wigs and Mitres Service' lecture at

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincol ...

Chapel his ashes were interred there.

Famous judgments

* ''R v Bournewood Community and Mental Health NHS Trust Ex p. L'' 9991 AC 458 *''

R (Jackson) v Attorney General ''R (Jackson) v Attorney General'' House of Lords case noted for containing obiter">Judicial functions of the House of Lords">House of Lords case noted for containing obiter comments by the Judiciary acting in their official capacity suggestin ...

006 Alec Trevelyan (006) is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1995 James Bond film '' GoldenEye'', the first film to feature actor Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Trevelyan is portrayed by actor Sean Bean. The likeness of Bean as Ale ...

1 AC 262 - controversial comments on

parliamentary supremacy Parliamentary sovereignty, also called parliamentary supremacy or legislative supremacy, is a concept in the constitutional law of some parliamentary democracies. It holds that the legislative body has absolute sovereignty and is supreme over all ...

and its common law foundations (and the possibility for the courts to invalidate unconstitutional statutes) *''MacLean v Arklow Investments Ltd'' 0001 WLR 594 (

Privy Council A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mo ...

) *'' Barclays Bank plc v Quincecare Ltd'' 9924 All ER 363

References

External links

Profile in ''The Guardian''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Steyn, Johan 1932 births 2017 deaths Afrikaner people English King's Counsel South African Rhodes Scholars Law lords Crossbench life peers South African members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Alumni of University College, Oxford 20th-century King's Counsel Stellenbosch University alumni South African members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council South African Knights Bachelor South African Senior Counsel South African emigrants to the United Kingdom White South African anti-apartheid activists 20th-century English lawyers Alumni of Hoërskool Jan van Riebeeck