The Reverend Professor Thomas Glyn Watkin KC

FLSW The Learned Society of Wales ( Welsh: Cymdeithas Ddysgedig Cymru) is a learned society and charity that exists to "celebrate, recognise, preserve, protect and encourage excellence in all of the scholarly disciplines", and to serve the Welsh natio ...

(born 1952) is a Welsh lawyer and the first person to be appointed to the post of First Legislative Counsel to the Welsh Government, taking up his post in April 2007.

First Legislative Counsel

Working within the

Office of the Legislative Counsel The Office of the Legislative Counsel of the United States House of Representatives is a nonpartisan government organization which assists the House with the drafting and formatting of laws. The Office was first created as the Legislative Drafting ...

, part of the

Welsh Government The Welsh Government ( cy, Llywodraeth Cymru) is the Welsh devolution, devolved government of Wales. The government consists of ministers and Minister (government), deputy ministers, and also of a Counsel General for Wales, counsel general. Minist ...

, Professor Watkin had responsibility for the drafting of the

'
legislative programme
following the implementation of the

Government of Wales Act 2006 The Government of Wales Act 2006 (c 32) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the then-National Assembly for Wales (now the Senedd) and allows further powers to be granted to it more easily. The Act creates a system o ...

Education

Thomas Glyn Watkin was born in the village of

Cwmparc Cwmparc is a village and a district of the community of Treorchy, in the Rhondda Valley, Wales. History There is evidence of, and logic for, a medieval park, or hunting preserve, in the enclosed area called Parc Cwm Brychiniog. It lies in the ...

in the

Rhondda Rhondda , or the Rhondda Valley ( cy, Cwm Rhondda ), is a former coalmining area in South Wales, historically in the county of Glamorgan. It takes its name from the River Rhondda, and embraces two valleys – the larger Rhondda Fawr valley ('' ...

in 1952. He studied law at

Pembroke College, Oxford Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, is located at Pembroke Square, Oxford. The college was founded in 1624 by King James I of England, using in part the endowment of merchant Thomas Tesdale, and was named after ...

, where he was Oades and Stafford Scholar (1971-1974). He obtained the degrees of BA (1974), BCL (1975) and MA (1977) from the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

and 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 (u ...

by the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...

(1976).

Professional career

From 1975 until 2004, he was successively lecturer, senior lecturer, reader and professor in the Law School at the University of Wales, Cardiff, as well as acting as Legal Assistant to the Governing Body of the

Church in Wales The Church in Wales ( cy, Yr Eglwys yng Nghymru) is an Anglicanism, Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses. The Archbishop of Wales does not have a fixed archiepiscopal see, but serves concurrently as one of the six diocesan bishop ...

from 1981 until 1998. He was appointed foundation

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

of Law at the

University of Wales, Bangor Bangor University ( cy, Prifysgol Bangor) is a Public university, public university in Bangor, Gwynedd, Bangor, Wales. It received its Royal charter, Royal Charter in 1885 and was one of the founding institutions of the federal University of Wales ...

in 2004. Known mainly for his work in legal history and civil law, Professor Watkin is a council member of the

Selden Society The Selden Society is a learned society and registered charity concerned with the study of English legal history. It functions primarily as a text publication society, but also undertakes other activities to promote scholarship within its sphere ...

, Secretary and Treasurer of the Welsh Legal History Society and a member of the editorial board of the ''Journal of Legal History''. He was elected to the Academy of Private Lawyers of Milan and Pavia in 2002, and is an ordained priest in the

. In 2013, Professor Watkin was elected a

Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales The Learned Society of Wales (Welsh: Cymdeithas Ddysgedig Cymru) is a learned society and charity that exists to "celebrate, recognise, preserve, protect and encourage excellence in all of the scholarly disciplines", and to serve the Welsh nation ...

. In 2019 Professor Watkin was appointed as Queen's Counsel ''honoris causa.'' Upon his appointment the Lord Chancellor, David Gauke MP, referred to Professor Watkin's role as the Welsh Government's "...first principal Legislative Draftsman", noting that he was "involved centrally in establishing and building the legislative drafting capacity of the Welsh Government – in both English and Welsh – in the initial years of primary legislative devolution for Wales".

Publications

His principal publications include ''The Nature of Law'' (1980), ''The Italian Legal Tradition'' (1998) and ''An Historical Introduction to Modern Civil Law'' (1999), and, as editor, ''Legal Record and Historical Reality'' (1989), ''The Europeanization of Law'' (1997), ''Legal Wales: Its Past; Its Future'' (2001), ''The Trial of Dic Penderyn and Other Essays'' (2003) and ''Y Cyfraniad Cymreig'' (2005). His book, ''Wales: An Introduction to its Legal History'', was published in the autumn of 2005.

Offices held

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Watkin, Thomas Glyn 1952 births Living people Members of HM Government Legal Service Civil servants in the Welsh Government Alumni of Pembroke College, Oxford Welsh barristers Members of the Middle Temple People from Treorchy Academics of Cardiff University Academics of Bangor University Fellows of the Learned Society of Wales