Visit by The Right Honourable Lord Dyson & Lady Dyson

NUS Law was privileged to welcome The Right Honourable Lord Dyson, The Master of the Rolls, England and Wales, and his wife Lady Jacqueline Dyson at the Bukit Timah Campus on 3 September 2014. Given the busy schedule during their short visit to Singapore, we were grateful for the opportunity to host lunch with Lord Dyson MR and Lady Dyson. Greeted by Dean Simon Chesterman and members of the faculty, the group chatted easily and enjoyed a lighthearted lunch.

Lord Dyson MR was in Singapore as an invited speaker for the Singapore Academy of Law’s Distinguished Speaker Lecture series on 2 September 2014. Titled “The Limits of the Common Law”, Lord Dyson shared that in the decision National Westminster Bank v Spectrum Plus [2005] 2 AC 680, Lord Nicholls noted that “the common law is judge-made law”, and that its development was part of the constitutional function of the judiciary. For the lecture, Lord Dyson MR examined the nature of that constitutional role, looking at how far and in what circumstances the judiciary, and particularly the UK Supreme Court, can properly develop, and has recently developed, the common law.

About The Right Honourable Lord Dyson

The Right Honourable Lord Dyson was appointed as Master of the Rolls with effect from 1 October, 2012. The Master of the Rolls is the Head of Civil Justice, and the second most senior judicial position in England and Wales, after the Lord Chief Justice. He was appointed as a Queen’s Counsel in 1980, and his first judicial appointment was as a Recorder held between 1986 and 1993. He was appointed as a Judge of the High Court of Justice for 1993-2001. He was also the Presiding Judge for the Technology and Construction Court between 1998 and 2001. In 2001, he was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal. Lord Dyson was appointed Justice of the Supreme Court in April 2010. Since 1998, he has been a Fellow of the Society of Advanced Legal Studies, and an Honorary Fellow of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2004.