Further background on Lord Justices Ryder and Bean

October 13, 2015 by Hampstead Research

Thanks to Tim V for this guest post:

FURTHER BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON LORD JUSTICES RYDER AND BEAN

WIKIPEDIA has this on Lord Justice RYDER:

“Ryder was called to the Bar in 1981 and was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1997. He became a Recorder in 2000, and a Deputy High Court Judge in 2001.[1] Ryder was appointed a High Court Judge in 2004,[2] receiving the customary knighthood, and was allocated to the Family Division. On 9 April 2013, he was promoted Lord Justice of Appeal,[3] consequently being sworn of the Privy Council.
Ryder was appointed to the post of Judge in Charge of Modernisation of Family Justice in November 2011,[4] and under his stewardship published the Judicial Proposals for the modernisation of family justice in July 2012.[5] Many of the recommendations were implemented by the Children and Families Act 2014, key amongst which being the 26 week time limit on the determination of care and supervision proceedings.[6] Lord Justice Ryder’s extensive knowledge and experience in the field of family justice, as well as other areas of law led to his appointment as a Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation in September 2014.[8]”

From 18th September, 2015 he has been appointed to be in charge of all UK Tribunals as this report http://www.familylaw.co.uk/news_and_comment/lord-justice-ryder-to-be-senior-president-of-tribunals#.Vhz733pVhHw  details. Clearly he has top level (including Privy Council membership) support and his decision in the Hampstead case did nothing to undermine that confidence placed in him. The announcement of this promotion it may be noted, was just three weeks prior to Judge Pauffley’s decision to refuse permission to appeal, later supported by the two Appeal Court Judges on 4th August, 2015.

“Lord Justice Ryder to be Senior President of Tribunals by Matthias Mueller

06 JUL 2015
The Rt Hon Sir Jeremy Sullivan, Senior President of Tribunals, is to retire on 17 September 2015. Her Majesty The Queen is pleased to approve the appointment of The Rt Hon Lord Justice Ryder (Sir Ernest Nigel Ryder) as the Senior President of Tribunals with effect from 18 September 2015.

The Senior President of Tribunals is the independent and statutory leader of the tribunal judiciary. Just as the Lord Chief Justice heads the judiciary in England and Wales, the Senior President heads the tribunals judiciary, although his remit extends to Scotland and Northern Ireland depending on the jurisdiction concerned (Immigration and Asylum as well as Tax are UK-wide). The Senior President of Tribunals provides leadership for all those within the First-tier and Upper Tribunals and the Employment Tribunals.

Lord Justice Ryder is co-author of ‘Child Case Management Practice’.”

This excerpt from  http://suesspiciousminds.com/tag/ryder-lj/   may be of interest on internal discussions within the family court on disputed issues such as allocation of children or of applications to move abroad with particular reference to ‘Payne v. Payne’. (There is a lot of relevant information of interest here)

“However, whatever the issue before the court, the task is the same; the court must weigh up all of the relevant factors, look at the case as a whole, and determine the course that best meets the need to afford paramount consideration to the child’s welfare. That is what, and that is all, that I intended to convey by the short phrase ‘global, holistic evaluation’.

Note also that whilst Ryder LJ emphasises and endorse the ‘balance sheet’ approach of the Court having a tabular document setting out the pros and cons of each option, McFarlane LJ deprecates that

Finally I wish to add one further observation relating to paragraph 29 of Ryder LJ’s judgment where my Lord suggests that it may be helpful for judges facing the task of analysing competing welfare issues to gain assistance by the use of a ‘balance sheet’. Whilst I entirely agree that some form of balance sheet may be of assistance to judges, its use should be no more than an aide memoire of the key factors and how they match up against each other. If a balance sheet is used it should be a route to judgment and not a substitution for the judgment itself.

A key step in any welfare evaluation is the attribution of weight, or lack of it, to each of the relevant considerations; one danger that may arise from setting out all the relevant factors in tabular format, is that the attribution of weight may be lost, with all elements of the table having equal value as in a map without contours.”

From http://researchingreform.net/2011/11/07/judge-of-the-week-who-is-mr-justice-ryder/these are said to be some ‘favourite quotes’:

“There should be a presumption that the child who is Gillick competent in relation to a key issue should be provided with representation or an effective means of exercising their autonomy, for example by making representations to the judge”;

“That there should be greater emphasis on alternative and more proportionate dispute resolution mechanisms with strong ground rules which can best be provided … by codes of practice or guidance”; and

subject to the protection of the vulnerable, “the process and the judgment of the court should be subject to public scrutiny”.  Well that’s good to know but has he applied those principles in the ‘Hampstead Case’?

Lord Justice BEAN meanwhile:

(from https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/you-and-the-judiciary/going-to-court/court-of-appeal-home/coa-biogs/ )

“Sir David Bean was called to the Bar (Middle Temple) in 1976. He was appointed an Assistant Recorder in 1992, Recorder in 1996 and Queen’s Counsel in 1997. He was Chairman of the Bar Council in 2002. He was appointed a judge of the High Court (Queen’s Bench Division) in July 2004, served as a Presiding Judge of the South Eastern Circuit from 2007 to 2010, and was a Judicial Appointments Commissioner from October 2010 to March 2014. In August 2015 Lord Justice Bean became Chair of the Law Commission. He was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal in October 2014.”

WIKIPEDIA contains additional biographical information as follows:

“Sir David Michael Bean (born 25 March 1954) is a British judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. He was educated at St Paul’s School, London and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.[1]
He was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1976 and became a bencher there in 2001. He was made a QC in 1997, and judge of the High Court of Justice (Queen’s Bench Division) since 2004.
He was appointed to the Privy Council in 2014[2]
In August 2015 he assumed the role of Chairman of the Law Commission (England and Wales).[3]”
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bean_(judge)

The Times in 2010 that “Mr Justice Bean, in his role as senior presiding judge for criminal courts in the south east of England, is no stranger to controversial and high-profile cases. In July, he sentenced John Venables, one of the killers of James Bulger, to two years in jail for downloading and distributing indecent images of children. He was later criticised as “out of touch” by the toddler’s family after ruling that Venables’ new identity should remain secret. He enraged the Telegraph journalist Janet Daley for deciding (in a 2011 CoA judgement) that swearing at a policemen was not of itself a criminal offence. seehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8905323/Would-a-judge-like-to-be-told-to-eff-off-in-court.html

He also sentenced Saud bin Abdulaziz bin Nazir al Saud to twenty years for murdering his servant. Perhaps it should be noted that in March, 2013 he was allowed to return to Saudi Arabia to serve the remainder of his term in a Saudi prison. According to the agreement between the U.K. and Saudi Arabia, he must serve at least 20 years before he can be released. We can only guess at what the nature of his current circumstances of incarceration are?

This year he was one of five judges that supported the Government’s new rules regarding secret proceedings in the Civil Courts brought in by the 2013 Justice and Security Act. Mr Justice Bean granted a section 6 declaration allowing closed hearing applications to be made.

“What are known as closed material procedures (CMPs) – in which evidence is given with claimants and the public barred from court, that critics have condemned as “a serious aberration from the tradition of open justice”.

“The five judges have unanimously agreed the secret hearings are lawful, provided they are “scrutinised with care” and discontinued if they become “no longer in the interests of the fair and effective administration of justice”.

“Leading appeal judge Lord Justice Richards declared: “A closed material procedure is a serious departure from the fundamental principles of open justice and natural justice, but it is a departure that Parliament has authorised by the 2013 Act in defined circumstances for the protection of national security.” see: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/court-of-appeal-backs-secret-hearings-as-government-faces-ira-and-iran-cases-10388261.html

Interestingly one of the cases involves Martin McGartland, a former agent of the Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch, who claims the security services failed to provide him with care for post-traumatic stress disorder and access to disability benefits after he was shot by the IRA and left unable to work. It is a case that might throw light on the clandestine MI6 operations that also included, it is claimed by other sources, to have involved using children from care homes to compromise IRA and other leading figures in recorded sexual activity. It should be noted top security and IRA personnel were also claimed to visit the notorious ‘Elm House’ within the same time frame. The case also parallels the longstanding one of Colin Wallace and the Kincora Home recently reprised here:http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/15/mi5-kincora-childrens-home-northwen-ireland-sexual-abuse