Top judges announced

Chief justice welcomes her new deputies

Sir Colin Birss will be the next master of the rolls and Sir Mark Warby will be the next president of the King’s Bench division. Their promotions — to the two most senior judicial positions after the lady chief justice in the judiciary of England and Wales — will take effect in the autumn.

Sir Colin Birss (left) and Sir Mark Warby

Birss, 61, is following the career path of his predecessor, Sir Geoffrey Vos, who was chancellor of the High Court before becoming master of the rolls. Unlike Vos, though, Birss will have served in his current post for no more than a year.

He had been expected to take on the expanded and re-named post of president of the High Court business and property division in the autumn. Birss may still do so, but only for a month¹ .

Whoever is appointed to succeed him will take responsibility for three courts that, for historic rather than practical reasons, are currently to be found within the King’s Bench division. They are

• the Commercial Court,

• the Technology Construction Court and

• the Admiralty Court.

And that, in turn, makes the post of president of the King’s Bench division more attractive to a judge such as Lord Justice Warby, whose background is in media law rather than commercial law — like the current holder of the post, Dame Victoria Sharp. We knew that Warby, 67, was seeking promotion when he stood down in February as vice-chair of the Judicial Appointments Commission, though I hadn’t tipped him for the job he has now won.

Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill chaired the panel that selected Birss and Warby. She was delighted with the appointments.

Of the new master of the rolls, who will be second in the judicial hierarchy and president of the Court of Appeal civil division, the lady chief justice said:

Sir Colin has served as the chancellor of the High Court and, before that, as the deputy head of civil justice. Amongst many other roles, he has also been the lead judge for artificial intelligence. His judicial and leadership experience, alongside his technological and digital expertise, make him ideally placed to take on this important role.

Of the new president of the King’s Bench division, who will be third in the judicial hierarchy, the lady chief justice said:

Lord Justice Warby has extensive experience in this jurisdiction as the judge in charge of the media and communications list, director of training for the senior judiciary and former chair of the High Court judges’ association.

He takes up the role at a time of change, with the creation of the business and property division. He will be able to draw upon his leadership expertise to ensure that the judges of the King’s Bench division, the largest division of the High Court, are supported in continuing to uphold the rule of law and deliver timely and fair resolution of the disputes that they decide.

Comment

Birss and Warby are active, modern and personable judges — utterly different from the fusty “who are the Beatles?” caricatures of old. Carr has every reason to be pleased with her new deputies.

1. Vos is retiring on 31 October rather than at the end of September, as is customary. We can now see why. If Birss replaces him on 1 November, he will have been running the business courts for exactly 12 months. And the Judicial Appointments Commission has just a little longer to find a new president of the business and property division. Update 1300: although I suggested a name in the original version of this footnote I now hear that the competition is wide open.