Sir Gerald Gordon CBE KC LLD HonFRSE: in memoriam
Sir Gerald Gordon, who died recently at the age of 96, made an extraordinary contribution to the criminal law of Scotland during his lifetime. Born and educated in Glasgow, where he graduated in philosophy and English literature and then in law, he entered legal practice in 1953. Following a period of national service, he undertook PhD study at the University of Glasgow as a Faulds Fellow, completing his thesis on Criminal Responsibility in Scots Law in 1959.
At this time, the literature in Scots criminal law was in what could charitably be described as a poor state. In 1967, Sir Gerald’s magisterial The Criminal Law of Scotland – building on, but going substantially beyond his PhD work – was to change that situation entirely. The book rightly attracted international attention for the depth of its scholarship and its ability to articulate and critically evaluate criminal law’s development by the courts. Modern, both theoretically and practically informed, and forward thinking – its discussion, for example, of the now-abolished marital rape exception stands apart from the uncritical analysis of other English-language writers around the same time – it has continued to be the authoritative reference point for Scottish courts and practitioners through multiple editions. We have been honoured to have worked on the most recent fourth edition and grateful for Sir Gerald’s support in doing so. The sheer volume of work involved merely in updating it, even with the aid of modern research tools which he could only have dreamed of, has left us in awe of his abilities (although we were very much of that view even before we started).
Gordon’s Criminal Law would, even if it stood alone, be a remarkable contribution to any legal system. It did not stand alone. He rewrote and regularly updated the standard reference work on Scottish criminal procedure, Renton and Brown, for many decades. He edited the Scottish Criminal Case Reports for forty years, preparing not only the law reports but accompanying commentaries, retiring only at the age of 91. Those commentaries were hugely important and influential: Lord Rodger once observed that judges would “look, rather nervously, at each new part of SCCR to see whether their written work had got a respectable mark from Gerald”.
And he did far more than write. He practised as an advocate and as a procurator fiscal. He taught, rising to Professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Law at the same institution. He sat as a sheriff and as a temporary judge. He served for the maximum possible term as a member of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (and so valuable were his contributions that the Commission took the exceptional step of retaining him as a consultant legal adviser thereafter). He contributed to multiple law reform efforts such as the long running Thomson Committee on Scottish criminal procedure (1970-1977), the Sutherland Committee on miscarriages of justice (1995-1996) and Lord Bonomy’s Post-corroboration Safeguards Review (2014-2015).
At Sir Gerald’s funeral last week, his academic brilliance was of course recognised – although he was also a modest man, and, it was also said, “brilliant at hiding his brilliance”. That specific brilliance had not prevented him, a friend remarked, from being barred from one particular pub quiz for setting standards impossible for other competitors to match. His deep attachment to and support for his family was even more to the fore. We were both privileged to know Sir Gerald towards the end of his career, where he remained as sharp as always and both up to date with and entirely unfazed by developments in law, academia and society. (One participant in a conference we organised to celebrate his work some years back wondered whether a paper on criminal law and BDSM would be appropriate for an event being held to mark an elderly academic’s 80th birthday; Sir Gerald listened unperturbed and commented that the speaker had “clearly read her Krafft-Ebing”.) Sir Gerald was a wonderful scholar and a kind colleague, and Scots law is much the poorer for his passing.
James Chalmers and Fiona Leverick
It came to our attention recently that an excellent portrait of Sir Gerald held by the Scottish courts can be viewed online: you can see it here.
