Lady Hale to deliver 10th annual Human Rights Lecture

Please join us for the Law Society’s 10th annual Human Rights Lecture, taking place in the Presidents’ Hall of the Law Society, Blackhall Pace, Dublin 7, on Friday 13 June at 6pm.

Please join us for the Law Society’s 10th annual Human Rights Lecture, taking place in the Presidents’ Hall of the Law Society, Blackhall Pace, Dublin 7, on Friday 13 June at 6pm.  

The Right Hon the Baroness Hale of Richmond, Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court, will deliver this year’s lecture on the topic of ‘Freedom of Religion and Belief’. 

Freedom of religion and belief is a long-established fundamental human right, protected by universal and European human rights standards, and by our own Constitution.  Although a long-recognised right, the extent to which freedom of religion and belief must be protected is far from settled, particularly when this right clashes with other rights equally deserving of protection from discrimination.  Increasingly, a delicate balance must be struck between this and other freedoms.

Lady Hale: an extraordinary career 

Having become the UK’s first woman Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in January 2004 after a varied career as an academic lawyer, law reformer, and judge, Lady Hale went on to become the first woman Justice of the UK Supreme Court in 2009.  She was then appointed Deputy President of the Supreme Court in June of last year.

Lady Hale graduated from Cambridge in 1966, after which she taught law at Manchester University until 1984.  She also qualified as a barrister during that time, specialising in family and social welfare law at the Manchester Bar.  She was founding editor of the Journal of Social Welfare Law and authored a pioneering case book on ‘The Family, Law and Society’. 

 In 1984 she was the first woman to be appointed to the Law Commission.  There, her team’s law reform work resulted in important legislation being passed, including the Children Act 1989, the Family Law Act 1996, and the Mental Capacity Act 2005. 

In 1994 she became a High Court judge, and in 1999 she was the second woman to be promoted to the Court of Appeal, before becoming the first woman Law Lord. 

Lady Hale has retained her links to the academic world as Chancellor of the University of Bristol, Visitor of Girton College, Cambridge, and Visiting Professor of Kings College London.