Former Non-Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal (2003-2012)
Richard Rashleigh Folliott Scott, the Rt Hon The Lord Scott became a Non-Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal in 2003.
The Rt Hon The Lord Scott was born in India in 1934. He was educated in South Africa and took Law degrees first at the University of Cape Town (B.A.), and then at Cambridge University B.A. (Hons), LL.B, before spending a year as a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago. He was called to the English Bar at the Inner Temple in 1959, and from 1960 to 1983 practised as a barrister at the Chancery Bar. He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1975 and became a Bencher of the Inner Temple in 1981. From 1980 to 1983, he was Attorney General of the Duchy of Lancaster. He was Chairman of the Bar in 1982/83.
In 1983 The Rt Hon The Lord Scott became a High Court Judge sitting in the Chancery Division and from 1987 to 1991 held the office of Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster. In 1991 he was promoted to the Court of Appeal as a Lord Justice of Appeal. He was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the Supreme Court, the head of the Chancery Division, in 1994 and Head of Civil Justice in 1995. He held these offices until in July 2000 he was appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary (a Law Lord) and received a life peerage. He retired as Law Lord on 30 September 2009 but remains a member of the House of Lords.
From 1992 to 1995 The Rt Hon The Lord Scott conducted a government inquiry into the export from the UK to Iraq of defence-related equipment and related prosecutions. His Report was published in February 1996. He has been a judge of the Civil and Commercial Court of Qatar since 2010.