Jonathan Sumption

Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption, Lord Sumption, (born 9 December 1948), is a British author, medieval historian and former senior judge. He was sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court on 11 January 2012, succeeding The Lord Collins of Mapesbury. Exceptionally, he was raised to the Supreme Court bench directly from the practising bar, rather than from prior service as a full-time judge. He retired from the Supreme Court on 9 December 2018 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70. He is well known for his role as a barrister in many legal cases. They include appearances in the Hutton Inquiry on the UK Government's behalf, in the Three Rivers case, his representation of former Cabinet Minister Stephen Byers and the UK Department for Transport in the Railtrack private shareholders' action against the British Government in 2005, for defending the Government in an Appeal hearing brought by Binyam Mohamed, and for successfully defending Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich in a private lawsuit brought by Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky.A former academic, Sumption was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1998 and is also known for writing a substantial narrative history of the Hundred Years' War, so far in four volumes. Lord Sumption has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA).