PAYING JUDGES: WHY, WHO, WHOM, HOW MUCH? NEILL LECTURE 2006

My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a great privilege for me to be invited to deliver the 5th Neill Lecture following in the footsteps of such legal giants of our time as Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Woolf of Barnes, Lord Steyn and Lord Hoffman, just as the page followed in the footsteps of Good King Wenceslas in the snowy wastes of Bohemia. After four aces the Fellows of All Souls have clearly opted to play the Joker.Pat Neill, the honorand, is fit to be ranked with Tom and Harry, not to speak of Johann and Lenny, in the annals of the law although he abstained from taking judicial appointment in this country. Instead, like a modern Pooh Bear, he became Lord High everything else, notably – I make a judicious selection - Warden of All Souls, Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, Chairman of the Press Council, Chairman of the Committee of Standards in Public Life and Treasurer of Gray’s Inn