Professor Jeff King appointed Legal Adviser to the House of Lords Constitution Committee

Professor Jeff King, Professor of Law at UCL Laws, has been appointed Legal Adviser to the House of Lords Constitution Committee. Professor King is the second Faculty member to have been appointed to this position, Professor Richard Rawlings having also served recently. 

Professor King said:

‘I am delighted and honoured to have been appointed to this role at such a momentous time for the UK constitution. This appointment reflects the ongoing strength of UCL Laws in the area of UK and comparative public law, and the Faculty’s ongoing commitment to public service.’  

In addition to Professor King and Professor Rawlings, other members of the UCL Faculty of Laws have also taken on important public appointments relating to constitutional affairs. Emeritus Professor Dawn Oliver served, among other capacities, as a member of the Wakeham Commission on Reform of the House of Lords, which reported in 2000. Emeritus Professor Sir Jeffrey Jowell QC  not only co-authored the leading treatise on judicial review but was the UK’s representative on the Venice Commission of Democracy through Law, among other important public appointments. Professor Dame Hazel Genn was from 2003-2007 a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and from 2006-2012 a Commissioner of the Judicial Appointments Commission.

More recently, Professor Colm O’Cinneide served as specialist legal adviser to the Joint Committee on Human Rights and to the Women & Equalities Committee, while Dr Tom Hickman QC is presently the Standing Counsel to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner as well as a leading silk in many notable areas of public law.

Professor King also plays an active role in UCL’s Institute for Law, Politics and Philosophy – a collaboration between UCL Laws, the Department of Politics and the Department of Philosophy. The recent conference launching King and Bellamy’s forthcoming Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory saw an array of world-leading philosophers of law and constitutionalism.  

Professor King added:

‘It is my hope that UCL’s unique strengths in public law, constitutional affairs and in constitutional and legal theory, will allow it to be seen for what it is – a leading centre for research and writing on key questions in UK and comparative constitutionalism. It is a place where theory and practice are in constant conversation, and a top destination for visiting scholars and doctoral students alike.  Our doors are wide open to them.’

 Jeff King is Professor of Law at UCL Laws and Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford and will be a Distinguished Visitor to the University of Toronto in January 2020, and was in 2014-2015 an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow of the Humboldt University of Berlin. He is an elected member of the General Council of the International Society of Public Law (ICON Society), and member of the Executive Committee of the journal Public Law. His book Judging Social Rights won the 2014 Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal scholarship and in 2017 he was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in law.