LAHORE: Pakistan’s 29th Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa is among the illustrious alumni of London’s famous Middle Temple, which is one of the four British Inns of Court that are exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers.
The other three Inns of Court are Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn and Inner Temple.
The following distinguished people, who later rose as global statesmen, premiers, presidents, chief justices, monarchs, chief ministers, governors, mayors etc have studied at the prestigious Middle Temple during the last few centuries:
Former British premiers John Major, Boris Johnson and David Cameron, Hong Kong’s first Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal, Andrew Li, Princess of Wales, Lady Diana, Hong Kong’s Judge of Final Appeal Kemal Bokhary, Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew and his wife, Kwa Choo, British Supreme Court judges Simon Brown, Anthony Clarke and Mark Saville, Irish High Court judge Sir Donnell Deeny, Thailand’s former premiers, Sanya Dharmasakti, Pote Sarasin, and Phraya Manopakorn, ex-Chief Justice Allahabad High Court, John Edge, King Edward VII, King Edward VIII, Indian Viceroy, Rufus Daniel Isaacs, former London Mayor Sir Peter Estlin, former judge of the Supreme Court of Trinidad and Tobago, Andre Mon Desir, Speaker of the National Assembly of Mauritius, Alan Ganoo, eminent British legislator Geoffrey Howe, former Lord Chief Justices of England and Wales, Igor Judge, Alfred Lawrence and Sir Nicholas Hyde, President of British Supreme Court, Nicholas Phillips, Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, Chief Minister West Bengal, Jyoti Basu, Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, Sir Andrew Fraser, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Sir Anthony Hart, First Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Chief Justice of the United States, John Rutledge, First Indian Governor of Bombay, Raja Maharaj Singh, first Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, Sir Lynden Pindling, President of African National Congress, Pixley Seme, Second Premier of Ceylon, Dudley Senanayake and former Speaker of Indian Lok Sabha, Somnath Chatterjee etc.
Meanwhile, apart from the Middle Temple, the other three Inns of Court (Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn and Inner Temple) have also produced and churned out some magnificent personalities like Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Allama Iqbal, Pakistani Premier/President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Indian Premier Jawaharlal Nehru, former Pakistani President Wasim Sajjad, celebrated Pakistani jurist and politician Aitzaz Ahsan, British prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, Indian President Shankar Dayal Sharma, Pakistani Supreme Court judge, Dorab Patel, former Chief Justice Lahore High Court and Allama Iqbal’s son, Justice (R) Javed Iqbal, Indian Union Minister of Defence, Krishna Menon and Bhimrao Ambedkar, the former Indian Law Minister and the man who headed the committee drafting the Constitution of India.
