​Lord Denning: Life, Law and Legacy

Not many judges have biographers. Very few indeed have three. The authors of the first two biographies of Lord Denning knew him well and wrote in his lifetime. This is the first, therefore, that has the benefit of an independent perspective. It is easy to read, full of interesting information, and very well produced.

It is a pity that the author was not able, for whatever reason, to draw comparisons with two judges who were to some extent contemporaries of the great man. Context is important. It would be wrong to think he was a freak. Lord Greene is mentioned very briefly and McCreadie J not at all. Greene was an innovator. He is now largely forgotten, though his most famous case, Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 KB 223, is not. McCreadie J was a youthful judge from a modest background who was always getting into hot water with the appellate courts.

Of course, sometimes Denning looked backwards, as evidenced by his views about the place of women. And sometimes he produced results that were persuasive but unhelpful, such as when he convinced himself that the balance of probabilities and beyond reasonable doubt could be the same thing. There was also the problem of Denning following his own precedents. The real objection, to my mind, was that this was not something a gentleman would do. Denning’s view could easily be supported by taking his name off the judgment he was following. If it were a Court of Appeal decision, not overruled, he could and should follow it. Why not? Sometimes he was carried away by his own sense of justice.

This book is above all a successful attempt to deliver a readable, honest and accurate portrait of the man, and of some of his most interesting and significant judgments. Time will tell where he stands in the judicial pantheon.

Michael Freeman is a retired Shropshire solicitor