Brian Francis Kerr, Baron Kerr of Tonaghmore, (; 22 February 19481 December 2020) was a Northern Irish barrister and a senior judge who was

Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland The Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland is a judge who is the appointed official holding office as President of the Courts of Northern Ireland and is head of the Judiciary of Northern Ireland. The present Lord Chief Justice of Northern Irel ...

and then a

Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom are the judges of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom other than the president and the deputy president. The Supreme Court is the highest court of the United Kingdom for civil and crimin ...

. At the time of his retirement, he was the longest serving Supreme Court Justice, and the last original member of the Court.

Early life

Kerr was born on 22 February 1948 to James William Kerr and Kathleen Rose (née Murray) Kerr, of

Lurgan Lurgan () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, near the southern shore of Lough Neagh. Lurgan is about south-west of Belfast and is linked to the city by both the M1 motorway and the Belfast–Dublin railway line. It had a population ...

County Armagh County Armagh (, named after its county town, Armagh) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the southern shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of an ...

. He was educated at St Colman's College, Newry, and read law at

Queen's University Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

. He was called to the

Bar of Northern Ireland The Bar of Northern Ireland is the professional association of barristers for Northern Ireland, with over 600 members. It is based in the Bar Library, beside the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast, together with the Bar Council of Northern Irel ...

in 1970, and to the

Bar of England and Wales 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 ...

Gray's Inn The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and W ...

in 1974. He

took silk 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 or a ...

in 1983 and became a member of the

Bar of Ireland The Bar of Ireland ( ga, Barra na hÉireann) is the professional association of barristers for Ireland, with over 2,000 members. It is based in the Law Library, with premises in Dublin and Cork. It is governed by the General Council of the Ba ...

in 1990, and an Honorary Bencher of Gray's Inn in 1997 and the King's Inns in 2004. He served as Junior Crown Counsel (Common Law) from 1978 to 1983 and Senior Crown Counsel from 1988 to 1993.

Judicial career

Northern Ireland

In 1993, Kerr was appointed a Judge of the High Court and

knighted 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 G ...

, and in 2004 was appointed

, only the second

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

to hold the position, and sworn of the

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 ...

. Kerr regarded the introduction in 1971 of

internment Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simp ...

without trial in Northern Ireland as having been "calamitous for the rule of law". However, he assessed his

Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an " ...

-era experience of the non-jury

Diplock courts Diplock courts were criminal courts in Northern Ireland for non-jury trial of specified serious crimes ("scheduled offences"). They were introduced by the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973, used for political and terrorism-relat ...

, introduced to prevent intimidation by

paramilitaries A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...

, as broadly positive. Citing the "distinguished civil libertarian", Sir

Louis Blom-Cooper Sir Louis Jacques Blom-Cooper (27 March 1926 – 19 September 2018) was an English author and lawyer specialising in public and administrative law. Early life Born in London, his parents were the grocer Alfred Blom-Cooper and Ellen Flesseman. ...

, he proposed that the non-jury system (in which there was an automatic right of appeal) "was in some senses superior to the jury trial." As was usual for the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, he succeeded Lord Carswell as the Northern Irish

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 ...

upon the latter's retirement.

United Kingdom Supreme Court

On 29 June 2009, he was created Baron Kerr of Tonaghmore, of Tonaghmore in the County of Down, and was introduced to 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 ...

the same day. He was the last person to be appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary (and therefore the last to be given a

life peerage 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 A ...

under the

Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 The Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 ( 39 & 40 Vict c 59) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that altered the judicial functions of the House of Lords by allowing senior judges to sit in the House of Lords as life peers, known as ...

) On 1 October 2009 he became one of the inaugural

Justices A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

of the new

Supreme Court of the United Kingdom The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ( initialism: UKSC or the acronym: SCOTUK) is the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom for all civil cases, and for criminal cases originating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As the Unite ...

. He was the youngest member, at age 61. He was succeeded as Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland on 3 July 2009 by Sir Declan Morgan. Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore dissented from the controversial judgment of the Supreme Court in ''

R v Gnango ''Regina v Armel Gnango'' is the leading English criminal law case on the interaction of joint enterprise, transferred malice, and exemption from criminal liability where a party to what would normally be a crime is the victim of it. The Supreme ...

'', in which the court held that a person could be an accessory to his own murder. In the 2016 Article 50 "Brexit", and 2019 prorogation of Parliament, cases before the Supreme Court, Lord Kerr was a "close questioner of the government submissions". Asked to specify which had been his most important case, Kerr opted for the 2018 legal challenge to Northern Ireland abortion law brought by the

Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) is a non-departmental public body funded through the Northern Ireland Office but operating independently of government as the National human rights institutions, national human rights institutio ...

. The law prohibited abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality, and four of the seven justices, including Lord Kerr, ruled that this made the law in Northern Ireland incompatible with human rights legislation. “One only has to read the dreadful circumstances of the young women who were courageous enough to give … an account of their experiences in order to be struck how dreadful those experiences were... It was an extremely important case and one which I was very pleased to be part of.” In 2014,

Ulster University sco, Ulstèr Universitie , image = Ulster University coat of arms.png , caption = , motto_lang = , mottoeng = , latin_name = Universitas Ulidiae , established = 1865 – Magee College 1953 - Magee Un ...

awarded Lord Kerr an honorary doctorate in law. In August 2020 it was announced that he would retire on 30 September 2020.

Defence of judicial review

Following his retirement Lord Kerr defended the practice of judicial review and the £56m cost of creating the Supreme Court in Parliament Square. He could understand that ministers might be "irritated by legal challenges which may appear to them to be frivolous or misconceived", but

if we are operating a healthy democracy, what the judiciary provides is a vouching or checking mechanism for the validity flaws that parliament has enacted or the appropriate international treaties to which we have subscribed... the last thing we want is for government to have access to unbridled power.

Personal life

Kerr married Gillian Widdowson in 1970, and the couple had two sons. He was a

. Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore died in the early hours of 1 December 2020, aged 72. Lady Kerr died in July 2022.

Arms

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kerr, Brian 1948 births 2020 deaths British King's Counsel Alumni of Queen's University Belfast Knights Bachelor Members of Gray's Inn Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Lord chief justices of Northern Ireland Kerr of Tonaghmore, Brian, Baron Members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Judges of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom People from Lurgan 20th-century King's Counsel People educated at St Colman's College, Newry High Court judges of Northern Ireland