William Douglas Cullen, Baron Cullen of Whitekirk (born 18 November 1935) is a former senior member of the

Scottish judiciary The judiciary of Scotland () are the judge, judicial office holders who sit in the courts of Scotland and make decisions in both Scots civil procedure, civil and Scottish criminal law, criminal cases. Judges make sure that Case (law), cases a ...

. He formerly served as

Lord Justice General Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are ...

and

Lord President of the Court of Session The Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General () is the most senior judge in Scotland, the head of the judiciary, and the presiding judge of the College of Justice, the Court of Session, and the High Court of Justiciary. ...

, and was an additional Lord of Appeal in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

prior to the transfer of its judicial functions to the

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

Early life

William Douglas Cullen was educated at the

High School of Dundee The High School of Dundee is a private, co-educational, day school in Dundee, Scotland, which provides nursery, primary and secondary education to just over one thousand pupils. Its foundation has been dated to 1239, and it is the only private sc ...

and the universities of

St Andrews St Andrews (; ; , pronounced ʰʲɪʎˈrˠiː.ɪɲ is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fourth-largest settleme ...

and

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

. He was admitted to the

Faculty of Advocates The Faculty of Advocates () is an independent body of lawyers who have been admitted to practise as advocates before the courts of Scotland, especially the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary. The Faculty of Advocates is a const ...

in 1962 and was Standing Junior Counsel to

Her Majesty's Customs and Excise HM Customs and Excise (properly known as Her Majesty's Customs and Excise at the time of its dissolution) was a department of the British Government formed in 1909 by the merger of HM Customs and HM Excise; its primary responsibility was t ...

from 1970 to 1973. He was appointed

Queen's Counsel A King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their Viceroy, viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarc ...

in 1973 and served as an

Advocate Depute The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service () is the independent public prosecutor, prosecution service for Scotland, and is a Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government. The department is headed by Charles III of the United Kingd ...

from 1978 to 1981. From 1984 to 1986 Cullen served as chairperson of the influential Edinburgh conservationist group the

Cockburn Association The Cockburn Association, often subtitled Edinburgh Civic Trust, is an architectural, conservation, and urban planning monitoring organisation in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom. The Cockburn Association, founded in 1875, is one o ...

Judicial career

Lord Cullen was a chairman of the Medical Appeal Tribunals from 1977 until his appointment as a judge in 1985. He was appointed a

Senator of the College of Justice The senators of the College of Justice in Scotland are judges of the College of Justice, a set of legal institutions involved in the administration of justice in Scotland. There are three types of senator: Lords of Session (judges of the Court ...

, a judge of the

High Court of Justiciary The High Court of Justiciary () is the supreme criminal court in Scotland. The High Court is both a trial court and a court of appeal. As a trial court, the High Court sits on circuit at Parliament House or in the adjacent former Sheriff C ...

and

Court of Session The Court of Session is the highest national court of Scotland in relation to Civil law (common law), civil cases. The court was established in 1532 to take on the judicial functions of the royal council. Its jurisdiction overlapped with othe ...

, as Lord Cullen. From 1988 to 1990 he conducted the Public Inquiry into the

Piper Alpha Piper Alpha was an oil platform located in the North Sea about north-east of Aberdeen, Scotland. It was operated by Occidental Petroleum, Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Limited (OPCAL) and began production in December 1976, initially as an oi ...

disaster 488 pages, 2 volumes and in 1996 he chaired the Public Inquiry into the shootings at Dunblane Primary School. In October 1999 he was appointed to chair the Ladbroke Grove Rail Inquiry. He was

Lord Justice Clerk The Lord Justice Clerk is the second most senior judge in Scotland, after the Lord President of the Court of Session. The current Lord Justice Clerk is Lord Beckett, who was appointed to the position on 4 February 2025, succeeding Lady Dorr ...

and president of the Second Division of the

Inner House The Inner House is the senior part of the Court of Session, the supreme civil court in Scotland; the Outer House forms the junior part of the Court of Session. It is a court of appeal and a court of first instance. The chief justice is th ...

from 1997 to 2002, when he was appointed

and

. In March 2002, Lord Cullen led the 5-judge tribunal at the

Scottish Court in the Netherlands The Scottish court in the Netherlands was a special sitting of the High Court of Justiciary set up under Scots law in a former United States Air Force base, Camp Zeist near Utrecht, in the Netherlands, for the trial of two Libyans charged wit ...

which heard the failed appeal of

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi ( , ; 1 April 1952 – 20 May 2012) was a Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am flight 103. He was head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Trip ...

against his conviction for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of

Pan Am Flight 103 Pan Am Flight 103 (PA103/PAA103) was a regularly scheduled Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London and another in New York City. Shortly after 19:00 on 21 December 1988, the Boeing 747 "Clipper Maid of th ...

. On 15 July 2005, Lord Cullen announced his intention to retire in November 2005. On 24 November the

Scottish Executive The Scottish Government (, ) is the executive arm of the devolved government of Scotland. It was formed in 1999 as the Scottish Executive following the 1997 referendum on Scottish devolution, and is headquartered at St Andrew's House in t ...

announced that

Arthur Hamilton, Lord Hamilton Arthur Campbell Hamilton, Lord Hamilton, (born Glasgow, 10 June 1942), is a Scottish judge and served as Lord Justice General and Lord President of the Court of Session from November 2005 until 8 June 2012, succeeding Lord Cullen. Early life ...

, a member of the

of the

, would succeed him as the new Lord Justice General and Lord President of the Court of Session.

Honours

On 17 June 2003, Cullen 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. Life peers are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister. With the exception of the D ...

, as Baron Cullen of Whitekirk, ''of

Whitekirk Whitekirk is a small settlement in East Lothian, Scotland. Together with the nearby settlement of Tyninghame, it gives its name to the parish of Whitekirk and Tyninghame. Whitekirk Whitekirk is from North Berwick, from Dunbar and east of Ed ...

East Lothian East Lothian (; ; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a Counties of Scotland, historic county, registration county and Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921. In ...

''. He sat as a crossbench member of the

until his retirement in 2019. He was also one of five additional Lords of Appeal in the

. On 25 June 2005, he was elected president of the

Saltire Society The Saltire Society is a membership organisation which aims to promote the understanding of the culture and heritage of Scotland, founded in 1936. The society organises lectures and publishes pamphlets, and presents a series of awards in the fiel ...

, replacing The Right Honourable The Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, K.T. On 30 November 2007 it was announced that Lord Cullen would be appointed a

Knight of the Thistle The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry associated with Scotland. The current version of the order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland, who asserted that he was reviving an earlier order. The ...

. He was knighted by

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...

at a ceremony in Edinburgh on 2 July 2008. On 4 September 2009 he was also formally installed as chancellor of

Abertay University Abertay University () is a public university in the city of Dundee, Scotland. In 1872, Sir David Baxter, 1st Baronet of Kilmaron, left a bequest for the establishment of a mechanics' institute in Dundee and the Dundee Institute of Technology w ...

in Dundee, a position he held for a decade. In 1995 he was elected an Honorary

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senio ...

Cullen also received an Honorary Doctorate from

Heriot-Watt University Heriot-Watt University () is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1821 as the School of Arts of Edinburgh, the world's first mechanics' institute, and was subsequently granted university status by roya ...

in 1995 He was sworn in as a Member of the

Privy Council of the United Kingdom The Privy Council, formally His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a privy council, formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its members, known as privy counsellors, are mainly senior politicians who are curre ...

in 1997.

References

External links

Lord Cullen reads the verdict in the Lockerbie appeal
14 March 2002 (RealVideo clip) {{DEFAULTSORT:Cullen, William Baron Cullen of Whitekirk 1937 births Living people Nobility from Dundee Cullen, William Douglas Crossbench life peers Knights of the Thistle Cullen, William, Lord President Cullen, William Douglas Lords President of the Court of Session Lords Justice-General Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Alumni of the University of St Andrews Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Scottish people of Irish descent Members of the Faculty of Advocates Scottish King's Counsel People associated with the University of Abertay Dundee Place of birth missing (living people) Honorary Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Life peers created by Elizabeth II Peers retired under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014