The greatest judge of his era

WDM mourns the passing of Lord Bingham who presided over the Pergau Dam case.

When WDM took the government to court last year, and on appeal, earlier this year, I was left with a heavy heart and an empty feeling about the state of our judiciary. Our case was questioning whether or not the government had done a full environmental assessment (as required in policy) of RBS’ holdings, before part-nationalising the bank. The issue of climate change appeared not to register in the minds of the judges at all, while the line of the government – that it was their prerogative to interpret what environmental impact meant and how they undertook the assessment, stood firm. Listening to both judges who presided over the cases, I couldn’t help thinking “you don’t represent me, or the majority of people in the World, so how do you come to make life or death decisions on our behalf?” The appeal court judge, in particular, offered what I felt were rather ill-informed and callous remarks, coming from someone who must shut himself off from the reality of modern times: “Well, I don’t see what a bank’s investments have to do with climate change”, he said in his summation.

This is a long way from the former lord chief justice, Lord Bingham, who died on Saturday. A fiercely independent judge, he often was seen to reject the government’s arguments and see the bigger picture. He presided over WDM’s ground-breaking Pergau Dam case in 1994. In the case, he found against the idea of arms for aid, promoted by then Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd. And critically, he recognised the standing of an NGO (in this case WDM) to bring such a challenge which paved the way for future successful legal challenges by civil society. As the Guardian writes in his obituary, he was considered by some to be the “greatest lord chief justice ever.” My own recent experience of the courts would suggest that such courage as demonstrated by Lord Bingham, seems in short supply these days.

Read the full obituary