Lord Hoffmann, 74, the second senior law lord, is revered for his intellectual brilliance and, along with Lord Bingham of Cornhill, has had the most influence on the rulings of the highest court in the past decade. Charming and urbane, he provoked the biggest controversy to engulf the law lords when he failed to declare links with Amnesty International before ruling on whether General Pinochet was immune from prosecution. That led to the unprecedented setting aside of the House of Lords’ judgment — and Lord Hoffmann’s spell in the wilderness, so far as some judicial colleagues were concerned. He has since been rehabilitated: too great and dominant a brain to sideline, although he keeps a lower social profile. His rulings and liberal conservatism still provoke controversy, but for acceptable reasons. In the law lords’ landmark Belmarsh ruling, he said: “The real threat to the life of the nation . . . comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these. It calls into question the very existence of an ancient liberty of which this country has, until now, been very proud — freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention.”

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