Honorary Graduates
Orations and responses
Lord Slynn of Hadley
Oration given on 5 April 2001
Chancellor, the Senate of the University has resolved that
the degree of Doctor of the University be conferred upon LORD SLYNN OF
HADLEY.
There is a sense in which most of the people present here today are visitors
to the University. But there is only one University Visitor, with a
capital “V”. It was that little-known, but very important position that
was held by Lord Slynn for five years, from 1995 to 2000.
The institution of Visitor to British universities goes back at least to the
seventeenth century. In some ways, it may seem anachronistic, or quaint,
or just plain out-of-date. Indeed, discussion is currently taking place
throughout the university sector as to whether or not the office should be
discontinued. But, unless or until it is, the Visitor will continue to
play an important role in the academic life of the nation.
In his Commentaries on the Laws of England, the eighteenth-century English
jurist Sir William Blackstone wrote:
For corporations being composed of individuals, subject to human frailties,
are liable, as well as private persons, to deviate from the end of their
institution. And for that reason, Blackstone continued, the law has
provided proper persons to visit, inquire into, and correct all irregularities
that arise in such corporations…
In other words, the Visitor is someone whose task it is to ensure that the
University’s rules and regulations are correctly and fairly applied. He,
or she, is the protector not just of the institution, but also of any aggrieved
person belonging to that institution.
In his five years as Visitor to this University, Lord Slynn discharged those
functions with even-handedness, tact and meticulous observance of the principles
of natural justice. For that alone, the University is grateful.
However, important though the role of the Visitor may be on those thankfully
few occasions when his services are called upon, it can scarcely be other than
peripheral to a leading Lawyer’s main professional activity. And in the
case of Lord Slynn, that activity has been distinguished indeed.
Educated at Sandbach School in Cheshire, Goldsmith’s College of the
University of London (where he took a degree in modern history) and Trinity
College, Cambridge, Lord Slynn was called to the Bar in 1956. Much of his
early career was spent in public service, first as junior counsel at the
Ministry of Labour and then at the Treasury as, first, junior and then leading
counsel, having been appointed Queen’s Counsel along the way. For part of
that time, too, he was, to borrow his own phrase, “one of the last of the
old-style Recorders”, in this case, of the city of Hereford, a position that
gave him much pleasure.
It was in 1976 that Lord Slynn was appointed a Judge of the High Court of
Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, and, two years later, he was made President of
the Employment Appeals Tribunal. But then came what a fellow Lawyer has
called a “massive intellectual challenge”: he moved from the Queen’s Bench
Division to the Court of Justice of the European Community in Luxembourg.
He was the first English judge to go there, where he was one of six Advocates
General.
It is only very recently that the broader public has become aware of the
increasing role that European law plays in our lives. This University
recognised the importance of Europe at a very early stage. The Department
of Law made Law of the European Union a compulsory subject for students years
before it was made obligatory by the Bar and Law Society. Today, the Essex
LLM in European Community Law is one of the leading such degrees in the country.
Small wonder, then, that Lord Slynn is well known to, and greatly admired by,
members of this University as a distinguished Advocate-General (a position that
has no parallel in the English legal system). Subsequently, in 1988, he
became a Judge at the European Court of Justice. Doubtless it was this
distinction, and the abundance of expertise that he had accumulated embracing
European Law and the Legal System of the Community, together with his deep
knowledge of English law, that lay behind his being asked to return to the
United Kingdom in 1992 as Lord Slynn of Hadley, a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.
In all the many positions that Lord Slynn has held, the quality demanded
above all else has been complete impartiality and independence, together with a
meticulous (a word often applied to him) observance of the law. Regarded
as a person of liberal inclination and someone of warm humanity, he has
nonetheless sometimes placed his perception of the proper interpretation of the
law before popularity and has been fearless in his interpretation of it.
Lord Slynn’s five years as Visitor to this University far from exhausts his
links with the world of academe. He has held visiting lectureships at
universities around the world, ranging as far afield as British Columbia,
Sydney, Australia, Cornell University in the United States, the National Law
School of India, as well as King’s College London and the University of Durham,
where for seven years he was Visiting Professor of Law, a post that gave him
particular satisfaction.
It comes as no surprise to discover that Lord Slynn has been accorded
numerous honours and distinctions, not just in Britain and Europe, but
throughout the world – it is a good job that he lists travel amongst his
interests! Yet he still finds time to support other causes, including the
welfare of students: he has been a Governor and then Fellow of the International
Students’ House Trust. In short, Lord Slynn, a true polymer, is someone
who has a distinguished record of service to his country, to his profession, to
this University, and to the international community of scholars.
Chancellor, I present to you LORD SLYNN OF HADLEY.
Orator: Professor Peter Frank