The Rt Hon The Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd
Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales

Lord Thomas is the Head of the Judiciary and President of the Courts of England and Wales, the most senior position in the United Kingdom judiciary.

Lord Thomas is the first Chief Justice of England and Wales to deliver the Sultan Azlan Shah Law Lecture.

Lord Thomas was born in 1947. He was educated at Rugby School, and read law at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Law in 1966. He then proceeded to obtain a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Chicago where he was made a Commonwealth Fellow.

Lord Thomas was called to the English Bar in 1969 by the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn. He became a Queen’s Counsel in 1984 and was appointed a Recorder in 1987. In January 1996, he was appointed as a judge of the English High Court and was assigned to the Queen's Bench Division. In 2003, Lord Thomas was elevated to the English Court of Appeal and appointed to the Privy Council.

His Lordship was the Senior Presiding Judge of the Court of Appeal from 2003 to 2006. In October 2008, he was appointed Vice-President of the Queen's Bench Division and Deputy Head of Criminal Justice, and in October 2011, he was appointed the President of the Queen's Bench Division.

On 1 October 2013, Lord Thomas was appointed as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and made a Life Peer in the House of Lords.

As a judge, Lord Thomas delivered decision in a number of high-profile cases, including refusing the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's appeal against extradition from the United Kingdom to Sweden, as well as radical cleric Abu Hamza's legal battle against extradition to the United States of America.

In October 2016, Lord Thomas delivered the judgment of the Divisional Court of the English High Court in the landmark constitutional case of R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (The Brexit Case) (2016), which ruled that the United Kingdom government could not initiate withdrawal from the European Union pursuant to Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on European Union by way of royal prerogative, and instead required an Act of Parliament authorising the government to do so. The decision of the Divisional Court was upheld by a majority of the UK Supreme Court in January 2017.

Lord Thomas is a Bencher of Gray's Inn and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge.

In October 2017, Lord Thomas will retire as the Chief Justice on reaching the mandatory age for retirement of judges in the UK.

Lord Thomas is married to Lady Elizabeth Ann Buchanan with two children.

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