What else? Neuberger was baffled to learn that Jay Z had named an album after a medieval charter of rights: the Magna Carta. “I suppose that when it comes to subtle allusions, rap singers may have it over judges.”
The Feminist
In 2009 Lady Brenda Hale, 71, became the first woman Justice of the Supreme Court. She spent 18 years teaching law at the University of Manchester and working part-time as a barrister, or specialist trial attorney. She’s spoken passionately about the need for more female judges, and in support of equal rights generally. “If judicial diversity is such a good thing, why do we have so little of it?” she said in 2014.“ We are out of step with the rest of the world.”
On the subject of Europe, she attracted criticism in November for raising a question about whether Article 50 would require new laws, even though she made clear she wasn’t expressing a view about the case.
During the Brexit trial: Many of Hale’s interventions were to complain about the “confusing” filing system for the case documents. But she also spoke out about the importance of European laws in the U.K. “There are vast swathes of domestic law which have been enacted in domestic law as a result of EU obligations.”
Decision: Parliament must vote
What else? She once described the white horsehair wigs worn in British courts as “silly gear,” in an interview with the Telegraph newspaper. That’s no longer a problem for Hale as Supreme Court judges don’t wear wigs.
The Francophile
Lord Brian Kerr, 68, served as Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland from 2004 to 2009. He also sat as a judge of the European Court of Human Rights in a dispute over aircraft noise from London’s Heathrow. On the day of the controversy over Lady Hale’s speech, Kerr told the BBC he is “not particularly looking forward to the public interest” in the Article 50 challenge but he’s “certainly not disheartened by it.” In a May 2007 paper he grappled with the “illogical” nature of the U.K. constitution, adding that in modern times “it has shown itself to be as strong and flexible as ever.”
During the Brexit trial: Kerr said that, if the Supreme Court sides with Miller against the government, “we are not issuing an edict to Parliament or to the executive that you must do this or you must do that; we are simply saying what the law is.”