Louis Blom-Cooper

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Louis Blom-Cooper is a lawyer from the United Kingdom who has been a leading figure in public law for many years and has been at the forefront of administrative law throughout its modern development.

He held an academic appointment at the University of London from 1962 to 1984 and has written extensively on all areas of law. He was Chair of the Mental Health Act Commission from 1987-1994 and a Judge in the Court of Appeal of Jersey and of Guernsey from 1988-1996. He has chaired over twelve Inquiries over the last decade including the Jasmine Beckford and Ashworth Inquiries. He sat as a Deputy High Court Judge on housing and judicial review cases until 1996. In 1992 he was appointed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland as the first Independent Commissioner for the Holding Centres. He held this appointment until April 1999. He was recently called to the Bar of Northern Ireland and granted Silk in Northern Ireland. He was also council to the Saville Inquiry acting for the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.

Blom-Cooper has published a number of books, including a reexamination of the case of the Birmingham Six - whose conviction for the IRA pub bombing in Birmingham, England, in 1974 was quashed 17 years later - and which prompted an unsuccessful libel action for defamation in Irish courts from two of the Six.

Blom-Cooper was involved in the foundation of Amnesty International in 1961, supporting Peter Benenson's idea for an appeal for amnesty for political prisoners. It was at Blom-Cooper's suggestion that Benenson wrote to David Astor, proprieter of the Observer, the newspaper for which Blom-Cooper wrote an editorial column at that time, to publicise the campaign. Blom-Cooper also took part in a small committee of individuals who helped carried through the appeal which lead to Amnesty International.

He is also a Patron of Prisoners Abroad a registered charity which supports Britons who are held overseas.