Hugh Morton, Baron Morton of Shuna

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The Right Honourable
The Lord Morton of Shuna
Lord Morton of Shuna in 1988
Senator of the College of Justice
In office
1988–1995

Hugh Drennan Baird Morton, Baron Morton of Shuna (10 April 1930 – 26 April 1995) was a Scottish lawyer, judge and politician.

Biography[edit]

Born to Scottish missionaries in Mukden, Morton was educated at the Glasgow Academy and Glasgow University, where he read Law, obtaining a First and a Distinction.[1]

Originally a solicitor, he was admitted to the Scottish bar in 1965 and was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1974. He was a Crown Prosecutor for nearly 10 years, from 1967 to 1971 and from 1974 to 1979.[2]

In 1985, Morton was made a life peer, as Baron Morton of Shuna, of Stockbridge in the District of the City of Edinburgh.[3] He sat on the Labour benches, as Labour's legal affairs spokesman in the House of Lords.[2]

In 1988 he was appointed a Senator of the College of Justice, where he remained critical of the law's failings. In two murder trials, he acquitted the accused on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to send the case to the jury.[2]

He died of cancer in Edinburgh in 1995.[2]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Dalyell, Tam. "Obituary: Lord Morton of Shuna". The Independent.
  2. ^ a b c d "Top judge Lord Morton is dead". The Herlald. Glasgow. 27 April 1995. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
  3. ^ "No. 50144". The London Gazette. 5 June 1985. p. 7769.
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