Donald James Nicholls, Baron Nicholls of Birkenhead, (25 January 1933 – 25 September 2019) was a British

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and givin ...

who became 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 ...

(Lord of Appeal in Ordinary).

Biography

Nicholls was educated at Birkenhead School, before reading Law at

Liverpool University , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

and

Trinity Hall, Cambridge Trinity Hall (formally The College or Hall of the Holy Trinity in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is the fifth-oldest surviving college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by ...

. He was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

in 1958 as a member of 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 I ...

, becoming a

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 1974. He was made a High Court judge on 30 September 1983, 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 ...

. On 10 February 1986, he was appointed a

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 ...

and subsequently appointed to 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 ...

. He became

Vice-Chancellor of the Supreme Court The Chancellor of the High Court is the head of the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. This judge and the other two heads of divisions (Family and Queens Bench) sit by virtue of their offices often, as and whe ...

on 1 October 1991. He was appointed 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 ...

on 3 October 1994 and consequently 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 Nicholls of Birkenhead, of Stoke d'Abernon in the County of

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant ur ...

. In 1998, Nicholls and the other Law Lords came to the international fore in deciding whether

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 ...

could be extradited to Spain. Three lords, including Nicholls, rejected the argument that Pinochet was immune from arrest and prosecution for his acts as Head of State in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

. They said the

State Immunity Act 1978 The State Immunity Act 1978 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which was passed to implement the European Convention on State Immunity of 1972 into British law. The doctrine of absolute state immunity was changed to one of restr ...

flouted a battery of international legislation on human rights abuses to which Britain is a signatory, and secondly, it would have meant endorsing the arguments of Pinochet's legal team that British law would have protected even

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...

. Nicholls said, He became Second Senior Law Lord on 1 October 2002, and retired in 2007, succeeded by

Lord Hoffmann Leonard Hubert "Lennie" Hoffmann, Baron Hoffmann (born 8 May 1934) is a retired senior South African–British judge. He served as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary from 1995 to 2009. Well known for his lively decisions and willingness to break w ...

. From 1998 to 2004, he was a Non-Permanent Judge of the

Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (HKCFA or CFA) is the final appellate court of Hong Kong. It was established on 1 July 1997, upon the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, replacing the Judicial Committee of t ...

. He retired from the membership of 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 ...

on 3 April 2017. He died on 25 September 2019 at the age of 86.

Judgments

*''

Harries v The Church Commissioners for England ''Harries v The Church Commissioners for England'' 9921 WLR 1241 is an English trusts law case, concerning the possibility to invest ethically. It tempers the decision in '' Cowan v Scargill'' to show that trustees can make investments, guided b ...

'' 9921 WLR 1241 *''

Royal Brunei Airlines Sdn Bhd v Tan is an English trusts law case, concerning breach of trust and liability for dishonest assistance. Facts Royal Brunei Airlines appointed Borneo Leisure Travel Sdn Bhd to be its agent for booking passenger flights and cargo transport around Saba ...

'' 9952 AC 378 *'' Attorney General v Blake'' 0011 AC 268 *'' White v White'' 0011 AC 596 *''

Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd ''Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd'' was a House of Lords case in English defamation law concerning qualified privilege for publication of defamatory statements in the public interest. The case provided the Reynolds defence, which could be rais ...

'' 0012 AC 127
''Royal_Bank_of_Scotland_plc_v_Etridge''_[2001
/nowiki>_UKHL_44.html" ;"title="001">''Royal Bank of Scotland plc v Etridge'' [2001
/nowiki> UKHL 44">001">''Royal Bank of Scotland plc v Etridge'' [2001
/nowiki> UKHL 44*''Fairchild v Glenhaven Funeral Services Ltd'' [2002] UKHL 22 *''Shogun Finance Ltd v Hudson'' 003UKHL 62 *''Tomlinson v Congleton Borough Council'' 003UKHL 47 *'' Wilson v First County Trust Ltd'' 003UKHL 40 *
Bellinger_v_Bellinger_[2003
/nowiki>_UKHL_21.html" ;"title="003">Bellinger v Bellinger [2003
/nowiki> UKHL 21">003">Bellinger v Bellinger [2003
/nowiki> UKHL 21' *''Campbell v Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd'' 004UKHL 22 *''A and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department'' 004UKHL 56 *''Archibald v Fife Council'' 004UKHL 32 *''Ghaidan v Godin-Mendoza'' 0042 AC 557 *'' Cream Holdings Ltd v Banerjee and the Liverpool Post and Echo Ltd'' 004UKHL 44 *'' National Westminster Bank plc v Spectrum Plus Ltd''

005 ''005'' is a 1981 arcade game by Sega. They advertised it as the first of their RasterScan Convert-a-Game series, designed so that it could be changed into another game in minutes "at a substantial savings". It is one of the first examples of a ...

UKHL 41 *''

Gregg v Scott ''Gregg v Scott'' [2005UKHL 2is an English tort law case, on the issue of loss of a chance, in causation. It affirms the principle of ''Hotson v East Berkshire Area Health Authority'', on a narrow margin of 3 to 2. Lord Nicholls' dissent is of ...

UKHL 2 *''Jackson v Royal Bank of Scotland''

UKHL 3 *''

Jackson v Attorney General ''R (Jackson) v Attorney General'' House of Lords case noted for containing obiter comments by the Judiciary acting in their official capacity suggesting that there may be limits to parliamentary sovereignty, the orthodox position being that it ...

UKHL 56 *'' R (Begum) v Governors of Denbigh High School''

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 ...

UKHL 15 *'' R v Saik''

UKHL 18 *''

OBG Ltd v Allan was a combined appeal with ''Douglas v Hello! Ltd'' and '' Mainstream Properties Ltd v Young'' and stands as the leading case on economic torts in English law. Facts Lord Hoffmann in his judgment summarised the facts. Judgment Elaboratin ...

007 The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

UKHL 21 *''

Palk v Mortgage Services Funding plc ''Palk v Mortgage Services Funding plc'' 993Ch 330 was a judicial decision of Court of Appeal of England and Wales relating to the enforcement of mortgages. The case concerned seeking an order for sale of the property through the courts, but it ...

'' 993Ch 330

Publications

Lord Nicholls Donald James Nicholls, Baron Nicholls of Birkenhead, (25 January 1933 – 25 September 2019) was a British barrister who became a Law Lord (Lord of Appeal in Ordinary). Biography Nicholls was educated at Birkenhead School, before readin ...

, 'Trustees and their broader community: where duty, morality and ethics converge’ (1995) 9(3) Trusts Law International 71

Arms

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicholls Of Birkenhead, Donald James, Baron 1933 births 2019 deaths People educated at Birkenhead School English barristers 20th-century English judges Knights Bachelor Nicholls of Birkenhead Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge Alumni of the University of Liverpool Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Chancery Division judges Members of the Middle Temple Members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council 21st-century English judges

Biography

Judgments

Publications

Arms

See also

References