John Donaldson, Baron Donaldson of Lymington

John Francis Donaldson, Baron Donaldson of Lymington, PC ( October 6, 1920 *, † 31 August 2005) was an English judge and 1982-1992 Master of the Rolls. He led, among other things, presided over the controversial trials of the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven.

Career as a judge

Donaldson was admitted after successful studies in 1946 as a lawyer and worked in various law firms in particular to focus on tort law and business law. In 1961 he was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1966 and was until then as the youngest member ever judge of the High Court of Justice. Meanwhile, Donaldson was the first president of the National Industrial Relations Court ( NIRC ), a national court for labor.

In 1979, Donaldson was judicial member of the House of Lords and thus automatically a member of the Privy Council. Three years later, in 1982, he was appointed Master of the Rolls and remained so until his move into retirement in 1992.

Criticism

John Donaldson was criticized in particular for his role in the trials of the Guildford Four in 1975 and the Maguire Seven in 1976. Donaldson had the members of the jury insufficiently noted in the opinion of observers to process inconsistencies of the evidence and statements, and thus contributed to one of the greatest miscarriages of justice of the British legal history. He also accused in 1991 the then Home Secretary Kenneth Bakerder contempt of court because the Home Office, despite the ongoing process carried out the deportation of a Zairers.