The Lord Scarman, who died on Wednesday aged 93, was one of the finest lawyers of the post-war era; a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary from 1977 until 1986, he achieved widest recognition as a law reformer and liberal-leaning chairman of public inquiries.

During the Brixton Riots inquiry in 1981, Scarman’s tall, stooping figure appeared regularly on television screens, his long face moved by concern and sympathy as he talked to residents.

Scarman shared many of Lord Denning’s fresh, down-to-earth qualities, only his were less obvious. He was, as one barrister put it, “the sort of man you might expect to see presenting arts programmes on London Weekend Television, whereas Denning is the sort of man who does the gardening programmes on BBC 2”.

Scarman also shared Denning’s awareness of how judges appear to the man in the street, even if he occasionally gave the impression of trying too hard to understand his problems. But his obvious concern and sensitivity won him the confidence of Brixton’s black community, and he no doubt wrote a better report because of it. By the end of his researches many thought he knew as much about Rastafarian culture as the people of Brixton.

In his report, he concluded that racial discrimination had been one of the main factors behind the riots, and he stuck his neck out by proposing positive discrimination in favour of blacks – a proposal described as “daft” by more than one Conservative MP.

Cynics suggested that the inquiry showed Scarman to be a self-publicist. Some questioned his unorthodox methods of collecting evidence, his habit of visiting areas and dropping in at police stations and schools. Photographs of Scarman dandling small black children on his knee led to complaints that he was indulging in self-projection.

But such carping was probably unfair. Scarman had no need to court publicity, having established his liberal credentials many years before.

During a period of great change in national attitudes and values, he had long been of the view that the law ought to be a medium for social policy and reform. Lord Denning thought similarly, but Scarman was more orthodox in his application of judicial precedent, preferring the encouragement of amending legislation through Parliament to Denning’s creative genius for extending judicial precedents.

“A judge’s job is to decide cases according to existing law,” he said. “He must not allow his instincts or desires to influence his judgment.”

Scarman’s preoccupation with law reform had made him an ideal candidate to head the Law Commission, set up by the new Labour Government in 1965 to untangle the laws assembled piecemeal over the centuries. English law had become obese, he said; it needed exercise to become athletic and lose the flabbiness that age imposed.

Even his critics conceded that he was an inspired choice, who succeeded in allaying the fears of those who saw his appointment as subversive while at the same time carrying through reforms which were put on to the statute book and have stayed there.

Scarman’s work during his seven years in charge was much praised. By the end of his chairmanship in 1972, there were 27 statutes based on the commission’s work, ranging from a new test of criminal intent to a fresh statement of the law about damage done by animals. Defunct statutes were rooted out.

His experience as a Family Division judge coloured his attitude to women’s rights. The Divorce Reform Act of 1969, which revolutionised the basis for both divorce and the distribution of maintenance, was largely the work of his commission. Under Scarman, it was also responsible for the Matrimonial Proceedings and Property Act of 1970, which radically enhanced women’s marital rights. After he left, the Law Commission never had the same influence or momentum.

Scarman emerged from this experience as a passionate advocate of a Bill of Rights, which he first formally proposed in 1974. He also believed that British judges could not remain apolitical much longer. “Judges should leave their cloisters and feel freer to make their views known on important issues of public life,” he said.

His increasingly public radicalisation during the 1970s may have been influenced by the realisation that Denning was going to remain Master of the Rolls – a post for which it was generally accepted that Scarman had been groomed.

Leslie George Scarman was born on July 29 1911 at Streatham, south London. His father was an insurance broker, his mother a “fierce and lovely” Scot. Scarman later said that the ambition and desire for security that he inherited from his mother explained the length of time it took him to expose his reformist streak: “The Scots are a hell of a people,” he said. “Priority one: get yourself established. Priority two: go places.”

As Scarman senior prospered, the family moved to more salubrious surroundings on the border of Surrey and Sussex. Young Leslie was sent to prep school and then Radley. From there he went as a Classical Scholar to Brasenose College, Oxford, where took a Double First in Greats. “I was always a hard worker,” he recalled. “I made up with industry what I lacked in talent.”

Called to the Bar by Middle Temple in 1936, he spent three years as a briefless barrister before joining the RAFVR at the outbreak of the Second World War.

He spent the first two years of the war behind a desk at Abingdon, the remainder as a staff officer in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Northern Europe, working closely with the Mediterranean Air Commander-in-Chief, Sir Arthur (later Lord) Tedder; Scarman was in the room when General Jodl surrendered to General Eisenhower at Rheims.

Returning to the Bar in 1945, Scarman found his opportunity in the new administrative law that was developing out of the social and political changes. He built up a wide-ranging practice that included everything from planning to aviation law, with a sideline in aircraft accident inquiries.

He was at his best cross-examining expert witnesses, generally regarded as the most difficult thing an advocate has to do. “Everybody wanted to employ him,” recalled one former pupil, “because he was so bloody good.” Scarman’s clients at one time included Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts.

Although he was a member of a charity for the deprived of Drury Lane, there was little overt evidence of his liberal inclinations as a young barrister on the make. He rose rapidly, taking Silk in 1957 and, four years later, aged 49, he became a High Court Judge.

Scarman was assigned to the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division (moving to the Family Division when it was abolished) and presided over the longest probate case ever heard: his judgment ran to 24,000 words and his life was insured for £300,000 by one of the parties involved. During the case, he commented sagely: “Darkness and suspicion are common features of will cases. Truth too often is the secret of the dead or the dishonest.”

It was Scarman’s apparent willingness to move in the outside world, and his talent for public relations which he showed at the Law Commission, which distinguished him from other judges when a beleaguered James Callaghan was looking for someone to head the tribunal investigating the Northern Ireland disturbances in the summer of 1969.

Scarman was told that it might be a six-week job; it took three years. He and his wife took a house on the Co Down coast at Bangor. As he arrived at Aldergrove airport, he was asked by a waiting journalist: “Are you Protestant or Catholic?” “Neither,” Scarman replied. “I’m an agnostic.”

“That’s not good enough,” the journalist persisted. “Are you a Protestant agnostic or a Catholic agnostic?”

Scarman had to convince the Roman Catholic community that his conclusions were worth hearing. Relishing the delicate balancing act, he began deploying the arts of stage management which were to be called on again. He organised in advance the arrangement of everything from the layout of desks to the type of ushers and how they should behave.

In the end, he concluded that there was no plot to overthrow the Stormont government, and that the violence was caused by mutual fear and suspicion rather than any planned provocation by the IRA or any Protestant faction.

His charm, courtesy, common touch – and genuine interest in knowledge – won him the confidence of the most alienated witnesses. It was no surprise when he was chosen to head future commissions of inquiry into social and public disorder: the 1974 Red Lion Square riot, and the Grunwick dispute of 1977.

Scarman went to the Court of Appeal in 1973 and became a Law Lord in 1977. As a Law Lord, some liberal lawyers complained that he rarely dissented from the judgments of his more conservative colleagues, even in controversial cases where legal precedent was far from certain. There were complaints that, while Scarman made promising noises, when his judgments came out they were the same as all the others.

In 1979 he upheld the blasphemy conviction of Gay News for describing Christ as homosexual. Two years later he ruled that the GLC’s cheap fares policy was illegal – Ken Livingstone later called him a “two-faced old hypocrite”. And in 1985 he allowed Margaret Thatcher to withdraw trades union rights from GCHQ in the interest of national security.

Three years after the Brixton inquiry, when he visited the area to see if relations had improved, he was greeted as a long-lost friend and invited to join the Afro-Caribbean Club. Most of his proposals – including reforms to the police complaints procedures – had become law, and when the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 was passing through Parliament, it was Scarman’s amendment that made racial discrimination by the police a specific disciplinary offence.

In 1985 he introduced into the House of Lords a bill to incorporate into English law the civil rights set out in the European Convention of Human Rights; it passed successfully through the Lords, but failed to win time for debate in the Commons.

A firm believer that judges should not outstay their welcome, Scarman retired six months short of his 75th birthday. Thereafter, he began to air his views more openly. He campaigned on behalf of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Tottenham Three, and called for an overhaul of the appeal system for alleged miscarriages of justice.

He also championed the cause of freedom of information, calling for the repeal of the discredited section 2 of the Official Secrets Act “lock, stock and barrel” and its replacement with a Freedom of Information Act. The right to know and obtain information, he argued, was too important to be left to ministerial discretion.

He began to acquire a public image as something of a radical, but he did not aim to rock the whole judicial boat. “I like change,” he said. “But I dislike disjunction.” Above all, Scarman was a great conciliator, able to switch to almost anyone’s point of view and put it forward a lot more effectively than they could.

For all his effortless charm and courtesy, Scarman was essentially a private man, and even those close to him sometimes pondered what made him tick. “I have always been a loner,” he said in one interview. “It is so important to have moments to think. The public dinner is a menace to men in public life. It’s heavy, it’s tedious, and it’s tiring.”

He never allowed his emotions to surface. Anger was detectable only by a flush around the cheekbones. He kept pace with work by starting early, sometimes at 4 am. As a young man he played the trombone, and later became an opera fan.

Leslie Scarman married, in 1947, Ruth Wright, who survives him with their son.

Wikipedia