Bulletin Spring‧Summer 2006

26 Chinese University Bulletin Spring • Summer 2006 Law School News Lord Woolf of Barnes Dr. the Honorable Sir T.L. Yang Sir David Williams Dr. the Honorable Sir T.L. Yang Dr. theHonorable Sir T.L. Yangwas Chief Justice of Hong Kong from 1988 to 1996. He is one of the most respected lawyers in Hong Kong. As Chief Justice he played a pivotal role in the creation of Hong Kong’s post-1997 legal landscape and the relationship between the Basic Law and the PRC Constitution. As early as 1985 he initiated important academic and judicial links between the legal systems of Hong Kong and China, with a particular focus on the importance of separation of powers and judicial independence as the foundation for the rule of law after the handover. Sir T.L. Yang also changed the course of 152 years of legal tradition by introducing the use of Chinese language into the courts of Hong Kong in 1995. Another of his achievements was the modernization of the Hong Kong legal system involving the recruitment of judges and the administration of the judicial system. Sir David Williams Sir David Williams is an outstanding public law professor in the common law world. He is Chairman of the Law Academic Advisory Committee of the CUHK School of Law, Vice- Chancellor Emeritus of the University of Cambridge and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of English Law. Sir David was Vice-Chancellor of The University of Cambridge from 1989 to 1996 and is one of the world’s leading academics in constitutional and administrative law. He is an honorary Queen’s Counsel and has been an adviser to governments throughout the world. Appointment of Three Honorary Professors to the School of Law The University has appointed three top experts in the common law world as honorary professors of the CUHK School of Law. They are Lord Woolf of Barnes, former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and Non- Permanent Judge of the HKSAR Court of Final Appeal; Dr. the Honorable Sir T.L. Yang, GMB, JP, former Chief Justice of Hong Kong and chairman of the Executive Committee of the CUHK School of Law; and Sir David Williams, Q.C., D.L., a leading public lawyer in the common law world and former vice- chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Lord Woolf of Barnes As former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales from 2000 to October 2005 and former Master of the Rolls between 1996 and 2000, Lord Woolf of Barnes is one of the most respected and foremost lawyers in the world today. Of his many contributions to the administration of justice, Lord Woolf was responsible for a major inquiry into prisons following disturbances among inmates and, most importantly, the reform of the whole of the civil justice system in England and Wales. He is the person responsible for modernizing and revolutionizing how civil actions involving, for example, personal injury are handled by lawyers and the courts.