Advent 13

Of the various heroes recounted in this calendar I have met only three. Of those, we have already encountered Alan Murrall and the third will be related in a couple of days. Today however we have a man I spoke to only briefly and that to get him to sign a copy of his book, The Discipline of Law. He used a fountain pen and in a flowing hand inscribed it, 'To David Roberts, Denning M.R.'

An advantage of being a law student in London and in particular at King's is one's proximity to the Royal Courts of Justice. Nobody would have called me an assiduous student but I did pass time between lectures and before the bar opened watching Alfred Thompson Denning (Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls) administering justice in his matchless style. More than anything else one had the feeling of watching a great and accessible intellect at work. Here is Denning describing his method,

I refer sometimes to previous authorities - I have to do so - because I know that people are prone not to accept my views unless they have support from the books. But never at much length. Only a sentence or two. I avoid all reference to pleadings and orders - unless something turns on them. They are mere lawyer's stuff. They are unintelligible to anyone else. I finish with an epilogue - again as the chorus does in Shakespeare. In it I gather the threads together and give the result. I never say 'I regret having to come to this conclusion but I have no option'. There is always a way round - in my philosophy - by which justice can be done.

Denning lived for a century and I have read it said that in his dotage he betrayed some unsatisfactory opinions. That is sad but it is by his professional body of work that we should judge him and that, to my mind, makes him the greatest jurist of the twentieth century.