Norman Wylie, Lord Wylie

Norman Russell Wylie, Lord Wylie QC (born October 26, 1923 in Elderslie , Renfrewshire , Scotland ; † September 7, 2005 ) was a British lawyer and politician , who was Solicitor General for Scotland for a short time in 1964 and a member of the House of Commons between 1964 and 1974 and as Lord Advocate from 1970 to 1974 was Attorney General of Scotland. After leaving the House of Commons and the Government, he became a judge at the Highest Civil Court of Scotland, the (Court of Session) , in 1974 and was a member until 1990.

Life

Second World War, studies and lawyer

Wylie, the son of a coal merchant, completed his education which was founded in 1577 Paisley Grammar School in Paisley and began in 1941 training at the Naval Air associations ( Fleet Air Arm ) of the Royal Navy . He then found use during the Second World War as a navigator on a carrier-supported biplane of the Fairey Swordfish type . After completing his active military service in 1946, he remained a reserve officer in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) and was last promoted to Lieutenant Commander in 1954 .

In addition, Wylie completed a degree in history at the University of Glasgow after the war . He then began studying law at St Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford , which he continued at the University of Glasgow and most recently at the University of Edinburgh . In 1952 he was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates and then took up a position as a lawyer.

Unsuccessful House of Commons nominations and Solicitor General of Scotland

In the general election of May 26, 1955 , Wylie ran for the Conservative Party in the constituency of West Fife for the first time without success for a seat in the House of Commons. In 1956 he switched to government service and was initially an advisor to the Aviation Ministry in Scotland and in 1959 as a public prosecutor (Advocate Depute) representative of public prosecutions in Scotland. In the elections of October 8, 1959 , he again ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the House of Commons, this time in the constituency of Edinburgh Central . For his legal services he was appointed Crown Attorney (Queen's Counsel) in 1964 .

On April 27, 1964, Wylie was appointed by Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home to succeed David Anderson as Solicitor General for Scotland in his cabinet and was a member of this until October 16, 1964.

Member of the House of Commons and Lord Advocate

In the general election of October 15, 1964 , Wylie was elected to the Conservative Party for the first time as a member of the House of Commons and represented the constituency of Edinburgh Pentlands in this until he waived a renewed candidacy in the elections of February 28, 1974 .

On March 4, 1970, he was appointed Lord Advocate in his cabinet by Prime Minister Edward Heath . He was the Attorney General of Scotland and thus the highest judicial officer in the country. He held this office until the end of Heath's tenure on March 4, 1974.

During this time he initiated numerous significant reforms of the Scottish judicial system. One of the most significant changes was his decision that the Advocates Depute should not be changed whenever the government changes. The consistency, credibility and demeanor of the Public Prosecution Division has been greatly enhanced by these changes. In addition, the law was liberalized in which, for example, divorced women were granted the right to their own residence and women were supported by family support. In criminal law, however, he represented a strict line against armed crime and against hooligans , especially because of the usual outbreaks of violence at the local derby between the long-standing rivals ( Old Firm ) Glasgow Rangers and Celtic Glasgow . This severity also sparked public outrage, for example in the case of Mary Cairns, a nine-year-old girl who stabbed a friend with a knife and was therefore sentenced to 18 months in prison. Wylie had initiated this trial. However, the verdict was later overturned after the crown, as prosecutor, and the social welfare office admitted that they had made mistakes.

Wylie also did not refer to one of the two leading judge positions in Scotland ( Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice Clerk ), which became vacant during his tenure , as was the custom until then . He also successfully enforced that the Scottish Law Commission, as the supervisory authority for laws, was placed under the sole control of the legislature instead of the executive.

Supreme Court Judge of Scotland

Wylie decided not to run again in the general election on February 28, 1974, whereupon his party friend and future minister Malcolm Rifkind won his constituency of Edinburgh Pentlands .

After leaving the House of Commons and the government, he became a judge at the Highest Civil Court of Scotland, the (Court of Session) , in 1974 and was a member of this until 1990. As such a so-called Senator of the College of Justice , he carried the title of Lord Wylie . Here, too, he dealt with various topics and decided, among other things, that there were no extenuating circumstances in a murder if the killer is under the influence of LSD . He also awarded a divorce to a woman whose husband spent most of his time playing golf. He also ruled that a single homosexual man could adopt a severely disabled boy whose mother did not want him, repealing his own earlier decision to the contrary. He was criticized for expressing sympathy for a criminal convicted of child sexual offenses.

Wylie, who became an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford in 1975 , was also a member of the Parole Board of Scotland from 1991 to 1993 and a judge on the Botswana Court of Appeals from 1994 to 1996 . He was also a trustee of the Carnegie Trust and chairman of the Scottish division of the English Speaking Union (ESU).

His marriage to Gillian Verney in 1963 resulted in three sons.

Web links

• Norman Wylie, Lord Wylie at Hansard (English)
• Obituary: Lord Wylie . In: The Daily Telegraph, September 13, 2005

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lords of Sessions ( Memento of the original dated February 3, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Leigh Rayment Peerage