Sir Bernard Anthony Rix (born 8 December 1944) is a former English judge, who was a

Lord Justice of Appeal A Lord Justice of Appeal or Lady Justice of Appeal is a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, the court that hears appeals from the High Court of Justice, the Crown Court and other courts and tribunals. A Lord (or Lady) Just ...

from 2000 to 2013.

Family

Rix is the son of Otto Rix and Sadie Silverberg. In 1983, he married Karen Young (now The Hon. Lady Rix), daughter of David Young, later Baron Young of Graffham; they have two daughters and three sons.

Education

Rix was educated at St Paul's School in London. He went on to

New College, Oxford New College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by Bishop William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as New College's feeder school, New College was one of the first col ...

, where he read

Classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

until 1966 and

Jurisprudence Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values ...

with Senior Status until 1968, graduating MA. He also represented the university at fencing. He was elected a

Kennedy Scholar Kennedy Scholarships provide full funding for up to ten British post-graduate students to study at either Harvard University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Susan Hockfield, the sixteenth president of MIT, described the scho ...

in 1968 and studied at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

, where he was awarded an

LLM A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with Self-supervised learning, self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially Natural language generation, language g ...

in 1969.

Legal career

Rix was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional association for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practice as a barrister in England and Wa ...

in 1970 (bencher 1990) and became a

Queen's Counsel A King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their Viceroy, viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarc ...

in 1981. He was a member of the Senate of the Inns of Court and Bar between 1981 and 1983. He was also a member of the Bar Council from 1981 to 1983 and was Treasurer of

in 2005. He was a Recorder of the

Crown Court The Crown Court is the criminal trial court, court of first instance in England and Wales responsible for hearing all indictable offences, some Hybrid offence, either way offences and appeals of the decisions of magistrates' courts. It is ...

from 1990 to 1993. On 26 July 1993, Rix was appointed a High Court judge, receiving the customary

knighthood A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

, and assigned to the

Queen's Bench Division The King's Bench Division (or Queen's Bench Division when the monarch is female) of the High Court of Justice deals with a wide range of common law cases and has supervisory responsibility over certain lower courts. It hears appeals on point ...

. From 1998 to 1999, he served as judge in charge of Commercial List. He was made a

on 2 May 2000 and retired on 10 May 2013. He was appointed as an International Judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court on 5 January 2015. Rix has also been the president of the

Association of the UK since 2002, vice-president of the British Friends of Bar Ilan University since 1999, member of the board of trustees of

Bar Ilan University Bar-Ilan University (BIU, , ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic university institution. It has 20,000 ...

from 1988 to 1999, chairman of the Commercial Bar Association from 1992 to 1993, and the vice-chairman of the Central Council for Jewish Community Services from 1993 to 1996. He wrote a report on youth services and organizations in 1994. In November 2007, Rix controversially overturned life sentences awarded to two

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

teenagers who terrorized a vulnerable man before beating him to death and throwing his body in a river.Jail term cut for 'feral' killers
BBC News, published 8 November 2007, accessed 29 September 2022

Personal life

Since 1986, Rix has also been a director of the

London Philharmonic Orchestra The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is a British orchestra based in London. One of five permanent symphony orchestras in London, the LPO was founded by the conductors Thomas Beecham, Sir Thomas Beecham and Malcolm Sargent in 1932 as a riv ...

. He ran the Spiro Institute from 1995 to 1999. In his spare time, Rix enjoys music, opera, fencing and

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

culture. Rix also is renowned for a fine collection of ancient glass, including medieval and Roman goblets.

Family

Education

Legal career

Personal life

References

See also