Retirement of The Right Honourable Sir Ernest Nigel Ryder, Senior President of Tribunals
The Right Honourable Sir Ernest Nigel Ryder retires as the Senior President of Tribunals and Lord Justice of Appeal with effect from 19 September 2020.
Background information
The Rt. Hon Sir Ernest Nigel Ryder (62) was called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn in 1981, took silk in 1997 and became a Bencher in 2004. He was appointed an Assistant Recorder in 1997, a Recorder in 2000 and a deputy High Court Judge in 2001.
He was Counsel to the North Wales Tribunal of Inquiry from 1996 to 1999, and then Assistant Boundary Commissioner from 2000 to 2004. He was appointed a Judge of the High Court of Justice, Family Division, on 4 May 2004 and was the Family Division Liaison Judge and then the Presiding Judge of the Northern Circuit.
Sir Ernest Ryder is a specialist in family and administrative law. Throughout his career, he has written and lectured widely on family law, the role of a modern judiciary, the leadership and governance of justice and cultural conflicts in justice.
He was appointed the Judge in Charge of the Modernisation of Family Justice in 2011, a review that led to the creation of the Family Court. His ‘Judicial proposals for the modernisation of family justice’ were published in July 2012 and were subsequently accepted by both the judiciary and Government.
He was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal and privy counsellor in 2013 and became Senior President of Tribunals in September 2015. As Senior President, Sir Ernest has been the lead judicial member of HMCTS Board, has led the tribunal system through the HMCTS modernisation programme, as well as leading the tribunals’ response to the covid-19 pandemic. He has been the judicial course director of the Judicial College Leadership and Management Development Programme for the last five years.
He is a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester, a trustee of the Nuffield Foundation and the Charities Aid Foundation, Chair of the Administrative Council and was Chancellor of the University of Bolton from 2014 to 2017.
Sir Ernest is now Master of Pembroke College, University of Oxford, as well as Senior Associate of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies in the Department of Law.