Lord Scarman, the distinguished British lawyer who chaired the 1969 tribunal set up to investigate civil disturbances in Northern Ireland, died in Kent last night aged 93.
He was best known in Britain for conducting the inquiry into the 1981 Brixton riot.
The 1972 Scarman Report into the 1969 riots in Belfast and Derry found they had not been planned and did not result from any subversive plot. While critical of the RUC, the Rev Ian Paisley, the then taoiseach Mr Jack Lynch, Ms Bernadette Devlin and others, he found the main blame for the riots was the "complex political, social and economic situation in the North".
Lord Scarman enjoyed a distinguished judicial career, serving as chairman of the Law Commission during its first seven years. His name became synonymous with the race riots that started in Brixton, south London, and swept Britain at the start of the 1980s.
He was born Leslie George Scarman on July 29th, 1911, and attended Radley College and then Brasenose College, Oxford. He became a barrister in 1936 and a QC in 1957, before becoming a High Court Judge and then sitting in the Appeal Court. He is survived by his wife, Ruth.
Lord Scarman was instrumental, with another former law lord, Lord Devlin, and two former home secretaries, Roy Jenkins and Merlyn Rees, in having the cases of the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven referred to the court of appeal and their convictions quashed. In the wake of this, the Birmingham Six were then officially recognised as yet more victims of a miscarriage of justice.
The Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, said: "He was one of the great advocates of our generation. A hugely humane family division judge. A great appeal judge. His legacy from his decisions in the Lords and the Court of Appeal is substantial. His work in the wake of the Brixton riots and his commitment to the vulnerable and dispossessed was second to none. A great judge, a great lawyer and a great man."
The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, said: "In this jurisdiction, Leslie Scarman was the father of human rights. His pioneering work laid the ground for the Human Rights Act 1998.
"He was a lawyer and a judge who had a remarkable insight into human nature, and an exceptional sensitivity to the needs of a healthy society."
PA