Rabinder Singh Q.C. -First Turbaned Britain's High Court Judge

On March 24, 2003
Clare Dyer writes in 'The Guardian'

"The first judge to sit in the high court wearing a turban instead of a wig will hear his first cases today. Rabinder Singh Q.C., 39 who will sit today as the deputy high court judge, is also thought to be the youngest person to sit as a judge in the high court. Mr. Singh, who was appointed as a deputy high court judge last Dec., was one of a group of barristers who founded Matrix chambers in 1999."

( Rabinder Singh )

So the above man is the first non-white man to sit in the high court as a judge and he's is a Sikh. He was born in 1964 in Britain to Sikh immigrants from India. He earned a double first in law in 1985 at Trinity College, Cambridge. Studied his LLM at the University of California at Berkely. It was at Berkely that he became very interested in constitutional law, particularly the misuse of power and how the law hold those in power to account.

Rabinder returned to England from California in 1986 and was a law lecturer at the University of Nottingham for 2 years. In 1988 he attended the Inns of Court School of Law to do his Bar Finals and was called to the Bar in 1989.

In 2001 the Lawyer Magazine named Rabinder Singh as the Barrister of the Year. He was also awarded Silk in 2002. In 2003 appointed as the Deputy High Court Judge and in 2004 as a Recorder of the Crown Court. He has got a book published in 1997 under the title of 'The Future of Human Rights in the United Kingdom'

Acknowledged as a Leading Silk in Administrative and Public law; Rabinder is described by Chambers & Partners Legal 500 in 2006 as being 'known for his expertise in cross disciplinary work' ans as 'one of the most impressive younger silks' in the area of Administrative and Public laws.

He received the legal Excellence Award at the Asian Jewel Award in 2003 and in 2004 he was granted an honorary Doctorate of Laws by the London Metropolitan University in 2004. You will be surprised to know that he has been the Chair of the Bar Council Equality and Diversity Committee from 2004 to 2006. He's also a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Currently he's vice-chair of the Constitutional and Administrative Law Bar Association.

Some of the best cases that he has represented and have appeared in the papers and are very well-known in the world of law are:
-Representing the CND in 2002, when he successfully sought a declaration against the Prime Minister and others that it would be unlawful for the Britain to go to war with Iraq without a fresh resolution from the U.N.'s Security Council.
. The Belmarsh case in 2004 where Rabinder successfully represented Liberty in the House of Lords against the indefinite detention without charge or trial of non-nationals suspected of terrorist activities.
-Successfully represented Liberty and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in 2005 in the case against the government over the refusal of benefits to refugees.
- In 2006 successfully represented the nine Afghan asylum seekers who hijacked a plane at gunpoint to get into Britain that they should have been allowed to remain in the country on human rights grounds.
- In 2005, successfully represented the Al-Skeini family and other families of civilians killed during the British occupation of South East Iraq, arguing that the Human Rights Act applied extra-territorially.