Richard Hermer, Baron Hermer
Richard Simon Hermer, Baron Hermer, is a British barrister and life peer who has served as Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland since July 2024.
Born in South Glamorgan, Hermer attended Cardiff High School. He went on to study politics and modern history at the University of Manchester and later pursued a legal career, being called to the bar in 1993. He joined Doughty Street Chambers in the same year and took silk in 2009, before leaving in 2012 to join Matrix Chambers. He later became the Chair of Matrix's Management Committee, and was appointed a deputy High Court judge in 2019. He has worked on numerous Supreme Court cases, including Lungowe v Vedanta Resources plc and Okpabi v Royal Dutch Shell plc. He argued that Shamima Begum should have been allowed to return to the United Kingdom to participate in her appeal when he intervened for Liberty in Begum v Home Secretary, and also represented the mother of one of the "ISIS Beatles". He represented former Guantánamo Bay detainee Abu Zubaydah in Zubaydah's Supreme Court case against the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and argued against the deportation of al-Qaeda operative Abid Naseer. Hermer also acted for convicted terrorist Rangzieb Ahmed, and Saudi Arabian terrorist Mustafa al-Hawsawi. He was also involved in multiple cases related to the war on terror, including representing victims in the Afghan unlawful killings inquiry, and the inquest into Corporal Stephen Allbutt's death in the Iraq War.
Hermer also worked on cases relating to police misconduct, including cases concerning the shooting of James Ashley and the killing of Mark Duggan. He acted for over 900 victims of the Grenfell tower fire which led to the settlement in May 2023. He represented the family of Adam Rickwood, who was the youngest person to die in custody in the modern era, in an inquest into Rickwood's death. He also represented the family of Ella Kissi-Debrah, who was later found to have died of air pollution. He also unsuccessfully challenged the Supreme Court over the assessment of the age of asylum seekers, as well as unsuccessfully taking the UK government to court on behalf of Sri Lankan asylum seekers coming from the Chagos Islands. In 2022, he was appointed to the Task Force on Accountability for Crimes Committed in Ukraine following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and in 2023 he acted as an advisor to the Labour Party regarding the Economic Activity of Public Bodies Bill. In 2023, he represented former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams following damage claims brought against Adams. Hermer has also advised Caribbean nations on slavery reparations, and represented Kenyan victims of torture during the Mau Mau emergency.
A friend and former colleague of Keir Starmer at Doughty Street Chambers, Hermer was a donor to Starmer's campaign in the 2020 Labour leadership election. After Starmer became Prime Minister following the 2024 general election, he appointed Hermer to the government as Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland. He is the first person to have not served in either Houses of Parliament before becoming Attorney General in over a century. Hermer was concurrently nominated for a life peerage, and soon afterward was appointed to the Privy Council. During his tenure, the government removed its opposition to the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, oversaw the prosecution of individuals who were involved in the 2024 riots, and agreed to cede sovereignty of the Chagos islands to Mauritius. Hermer has strengthened official guidance on legal risk, and rejected calls to review the sentence of Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana. He has faced criticism in the position for his alleged intervention over the security of singer Taylor Swift during The Eras Tour, as well as controversy over alleged conflicts of interests from his past legal career, whilst serving as Attorney General.
Early life, family and education
Richard Simon Hermer was born in South Glamorgan in 1968 to a "blue-box" Jewish family. His father, whom Hermer has described as a "proud" Conservative and a "one-nation tory", was a solicitor, city councillor in Cardiff and county councillor in South Glamorgan. His mother was politically more to "the left", and his father was also one of the youngest to qualify through the five-year route. Hermer worked in his father's office during holidays, where he delivered letters and covered the switchboard. He has said that he disagreed with his father "across a wide array of political topics", but said that they never fell out over politics.Hermer was raised in Cardiff and attended his local comprehensive primary school, Cardiff High School. He spent his final A-level year at a sixth form college. His favourite subjects were English, history and drama, and he aspired to become a theatre director and writer at the time. He later studied politics and modern history at the University of Manchester. Whilst at the university of Manchester, Hermer was chair of the students' union and a national executive member of the National Union of Students. In his youth, he was a volunteer for the magazine Searchlight; which later described him as an "active and dedicated" anti-fascist who worked closely with the magazine while he was a student in Manchester. He is a former sabbatical officer of the Union of Jewish Students.
Legal career (1993–2024)
Career
Hermer was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in October 1993. He started his career in Cardiff, but later moved to London to pursue what he later called the "really interesting" human rights work. He subsequently joined Doughty Street Chambers and there he got to know founding member Keir Starmer. Hermer acted as a junior to Starmer on numerous cases, and Starmer later gave the toast at Hermer's silk ceremony in 2009. On 13 March 2012, Hermer left Doughty Street Chambers and moved to work for Matrix Chambers. He later became the Chair of Matrix's Management committee, and was also colleague of Sarah Sackman whilst working there. During his career, Hermer specialised in human rights law, public law and environmental law, with The Guardian later describing him as an "expert on international law". His practice spanned public international law and private international law as well as domestic public law and private law.In 2000, Hermer was appointed the inaugural Human Rights Practitioner in Residence at Columbia University in New York. In November 2019, Hermer was appointed a deputy High Court judge following an open competition by the Judicial Appointments Commission.
Selected cases
Derek Bentley estate
Hermer acted for the estate of Derek Bentley, a British man who was hanged for the murder of a policeman in 1953 but was later posthumously pardoned.''Ashley v Chief Constable of Sussex''
In 2005, Hermer along with Keir Starmer were instructed by Deighton Guedalla for the claimants in Ashley v Chief Constable of Sussex, regarding the shooting of James Ashley.In 2008, after the defendant supplied a copy of the Moonstone Report to the advisers of the claimants, but the scope of the redactions were disputed; Hermer argued that anything to the discredit of the defendant should have been disclosed because it could have potentially aggravated damages, but the judge rejected this.
Abid Naseer deportation
Hermer defended Pakistani student Abid Naseer, later found to be an al-Qaeda operative and who intended to carry out a bombing attack at a Manchester shopping centre, before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission as the Home Office applied to deport him based on him being a threat to national security.MI5 revealed that they had emails between Naseer and an al-Qaeda operative in which they believed that references to a girl was actually an explosive device and references to a wedding was actually the date for a planned attack. Hermer argued that the case against Naseer was "palpably weak" and "inherently flawed", and called for the appellant to be given "his liberty". Hermer also said that the case was "pitiful" and "far-fetched".
Hermer failed to secure bail for Naseer during the 2009 hearing, and during a later judgement the SIAC found that Naseer was an al-Qaeda operative and that it was "conducive to public good" that he should be deported.
Kenyan Mau Mau torture victims
Hermer represented Kenyan victims of torture during the Mau Mau emergency in the 1950s in a case against the British government. He acted for four Kenyans who claimed they were tortured by colonial officials and soldiers, and Justice Richard McCombe ruled in July 2011 that they had the right to sue the British government for compensation.Three of the victims launched a second attempt in July 2012 to sue the British government following the discovery of Foreign Office files that documented the torture and murder of detainees by colonial officials. The FCO's archive of thousands of colonial-era files contained over 15,000 contemporary pages of relevance to the case. The lawyers for the FCO argued that the claims should have been be struck out as too much time had passed since the 1950s, but Hermer argued that the existence of thousands of official records meant that a fair trial was still possible, as well as witnesses still potentially being alive. Hermer said that the case would "take a long time, cost a lot of money, and occupy court time", but argued it was a case where there was a "dearth of evidence" and instead that there was an "extraordinary amount of evidence".
Foreign Secretary William Hague announced around £20m of compensation for victims of the torture in June 2013.