THE British Embassy in Harare will this week host retired judge Dame Linda Dobbs where she will tonight give a talk on the Magna Carta and its relevance in the fight for human rights and rule of law as the United Kingdom and the rest of the world commemorate the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta.
BY OWN CORRESPONDENT
The Magna Carta —also known as “the Great Charter of the Liberties” — is regarded as Great Britain’s most valuable export to the rest of the world.
The Magna Carta was written in 1215 by a group of 13th-century barons to protect their rights and property against a then tyrannical king.
During her week-long stay, Dobbs is expected to interact with top judicial officers and human rights defenders and share with them some of her experiences on the British bench.
Following a successful career at the UK Bar, in October 2004, Dobbs became the first non-white High Court judge in the UK. At the Bar, she was a member of, and chaired, a number of different committees, including the race relations, professional conduct and professional standards committees.
In 2003, she became chairperson of the Criminal Bar Association. In the same year she was appointed a High Court deputy judge and a year later appointed to the High Court bench, sitting in the Queen’s Bench Division.
While on the bench, she was the senior liaison judge for diversity, chair of the magisterial committee of the Judicial Studies Board and chair of the international committee of the Judicial College.
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Dobbs is a contributing and consultant editor to a number of legal publications and has been involved in the training of lawyers and judges both in the UK and internationally for over 20 years.
She is a patron of a number of charities including two in Sierra Leone and two in South Africa and sits on a number of advisory councils.
She has been named in the past as one of Britain’s most powerful black women and one of the 100 Great Black Britons and she has featured regularly in the Power 100 List of Influential Black Britons.
In 2013, she stepped down from the bench to pursue various interests, including training of judges and lawyers internationally, in particular in the Caribbean and Africa, commercial mediation, as well as working with the charities with which she is associated.
