Sir Ross Frederick Cranston (born 23 July 1948) is a professor of Law at

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

and a retired High Court judge. He is also a former

British Labour Party The Labour Party, often referred to as Labour, is a List of political parties in the United Kingdom, political party in the United Kingdom that sits on the Centre-left politics, centre-left of the political spectrum. The party has been describe ...

politician, and served as the Member of Parliament for

Dudley North Dudley North may refer to: *Dudley North, 3rd Baron North (1581–1666), English nobleman and politician *Dudley North, 4th Baron North (1602–1677), English nobleman and politician, son of the above *Sir Dudley North (economist) (1641&ndas ...

between 1997 and 2005.

Early life

Cranston was born in Australia, and attended

Wavell State High School Wavell State High School is a coeducational public secondary school based in Wavell Heights, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The school has a total enrolment of more than 1500 students from years 7–12, with an official count of 1674 ...

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

, Queensland. He was later a student at the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

where he was awarded a BA in 1969 and LLB in 1970. From

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 ...

, he gained

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 1973. From

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

, he was awarded

DPhil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1976 and DCL in 1998. He became a barrister of

Gray's Inn The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and Wale ...

in 1976. Cranston was a professor at

from 1992 to 1997 and the holder of the Cassell chair in commercial law from 1993 to 1997. Before that he held academic posts in the UK and Australia, including being a lecturer in the mid-1970s at the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...

and as a professor of Law at Queen Mary and Westfield College from 1986 to 1991, where he held the Sir John Lubbock chair in banking law. He was made 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 1998.

Parliamentary career

After contesting

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, a city in the United States * Richmond, London, a town in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town ...

in North Yorkshire in

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

William Hague William Jefferson Hague, Baron Hague of Richmond (born 26 March 1961) is a British politician and life peer who was Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1997 to 2001 and Deputy Leader from 2005 to 2010. He was th ...

's seat, coming third, Cranston was elected as the Member of Parliament for

at the next general election in

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

with more than half of the votes cast. He served as

Solicitor General A solicitor general is a government official who serves as the chief representative of the government in courtroom proceedings. In systems based on the English common law that have an attorney general or equivalent position, the solicitor general ...

from 1998 to 2001, when he returned to the back benches. After speculation amongst colleagues, he announced in 2005 that he would not stand for

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

again in the 2005 general election. He was succeeded by Ian Austin.

Legal career

Cranston was the Centennial Professor of Law at the LSE from 2005 to 2007, and returned as a professor of law from 2017. Appointed as a High Court judge in October 2007, he was 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 ...

. Marcel Berlins wrote in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' at the time that Cranston's appointment was unusual among judicial appointments in recent years, given that it occurred so soon after the end of his political career. Cranston retired with effect from 16 March 2017. On 4th September 2023 the Department for Business and Trade appointed Sir Ross Cranston to the position of Independent Reviewer for the Group Litigation Order Compensation Scheme.The Government announced the ex-gratia Group Litigation Order Compensation Scheme on 22nd March 2022 with the objective of ensuring postmasters who were part of the GLO and not eligible to seek compensation from the Post Office had access to fair compensation for their Horizon-related losses. The Scheme is run and delivered by the Department for Business and Trade. Final appeals are heard by the independent reviewer. Sir Alan Bates has said he was given a final “take it or leave it” offer, which amounted to 49.2% of his original claim after appealing and being referred to the scheme’s independent reviewer, Sir Ross Cranston.

References

External links

Guardian Unlimited Politics – Ask Aristotle: Ross Cranston MP

TheyWorkForYou.com – Ross Cranston MP
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cranston, Ross 1948 births Living people Harvard Law School alumni Knights Bachelor Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Academics from Brisbane Members of Gray's Inn Queen's Bench Division judges Solicitors general for England and Wales University of Queensland alumni UK MPs 1997–2001 UK MPs 2001–2005 Australian emigrants to England Fellows of the British Academy People educated at Wavell State High School