Patricia Scotland, Baroness Scotland of Asthal
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Patricia Janet Scotland, Baroness Scotland of Asthal PC QC (born August 19, 1955 in Dominica ) is a Dominica-born British lawyer and Labor Party politician who has been a member of the House of Lords since 1997 . She has been the Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations since 2016 .
Life
Studies and legal career
Patricia Scotland, in 1959 immigrated to the UK with her parents from Dominica, completed after visiting the Walthamstow School for Girls and the Mid Essex Technical College to study law at University College London (UCL), which she in 1976 with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.). After her admission to the Bar ( Inns of Court ) of Middle Temple in 1977, she began practicing as a lawyer and was also admitted to the bar in Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica. In 1991 she became the first non-white woman to be named crown attorney , and in 1992 she was named Black Woman of the Year .
In 1994, she moved as assisting rapporteur ( Assistant Recorder ) to the Judicial Service of the for England and Wales competent High Court of Justice and was also from 1994 to 1999 a member of the so-called Millennium Commission . Twenty years after she was admitted to the bar, she was named a Bencher of the Middle Temple Bar in 1997 and was also a founding member of 1 Gray's Inn Square Bar , of which she temporarily served.
Member of the House of Lords and Minister of State
By a letters patent dated October 30, 1997 Patricia Scotland was raised to the nobility as a life peer with the title Baroness Scotland of Asthal , of Asthal in the County of Oxfordshire . Shortly thereafter carried their introduction ( Introduction ) as a member of the House of Lords . In the House of Lords she belongs to the Labor Party faction .
In 1999 she took over her first government office and until 2001 was Parliamentary Undersecretary of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the Commonwealth of Nations . In addition, in 2000 she also became rapporteur and deputy judge in the Family Division of the High Court of Justice. After becoming Privy Councilor in 2001 and Parliamentary Secretary in the Office of the Lord Chancellor from 2001 to 2003 , she served as Minister of State in the Home Office between 2003 and 2007 . There she was initially responsible for the criminal justice system and legal forms and then from 2005 to 2007 for the criminal justice system and dealing with criminals. During this time, between 2002 and 2003, she was also deputy government representative at the European Constitutional Convention and was awarded the Order of Constantine in 2003.
Baroness Scotland, in 2004 by the House Magazine and Channel 4 to the Upper House Member of the Year ( Peer of the Year was named), and twice was appointed parliamentarian of the year, once in 2004 by the Association of Political Studies and in 2005 by the magazine The Spectator .
Attorney General and Honors
On 28 June 2007, Baroness Scotland of Prime Minister Gordon Brown as the successor of Peter Goldsmith to Attorney General ( Attorney General ) for England, Wales and Northern Ireland appointed and has held these functions until the end of Brown's tenure on May 11, 2010, with she held the newly created title of Advocate General for Northern Ireland from April 12 to May 11, 2010 after the reorganization of the office as Attorney General of Northern Ireland .
After the Labor Party's defeat in the general election on May 6, 2010 , she was in her party's shadow cabinet until 2011 "shadow attorney general" for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Baroness Scotland, a lawyer specializing in family law and children's rights , was intermittently Chair of the Disciplinary Tribunal of the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) and the Government Advisory Group for the Caribbean . She was also a member of the House of Commons Working Group on Child Abduction , the Commission for Racial Equality , the Legal Advisory Board of the National Consumer Council and the Advisory Committee on Mentally Disabled Offenders.
She was also Honorary President of the Law Association of Trinity Hall and Honorary Member ( Honorary Fellow ) of the Society of Advanced Legal Studies, of the Wolfson College of the University of Cambridge and the Cardiff University .
She has also received honorary doctorates from the University of Westminster , the University of Buckingham , the University of Leicester , the University of East London and the University of the West Indies . She is also a member of the Thomas More Society and of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship.
On November 27, 2015, Scotland was elected as the new General Secretary of the Commonwealth of Nations . Her term of office began on April 1, 2016.
Since 2001 she has given its name to the Scotland Edge notch on Adelaide Island in Antarctica.
Web links
- Entry on Parliament's homepage (accessed on November 28, 2012)
- Patricia Scotland at Hansard (English)
- Entry in They Work For You (accessed November 28, 2012)
- Biography in Debrett's (accessed November 28, 2012)
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Scotland, Patricia, Baroness Scotland of Asthal |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Scotland, Patricia Janet, Baroness Scotland of Asthal (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British politician and lawyer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 19, 1955 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dominica |