Ian Macdonald QC

Practice

Ian Macdonald QC was born in Glasgow and remains committed to his Scottish heritage. Friends went to the Scottish Bar and prospered, but apart from reading for the English Bar in the Faculty of Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, and being in a Swiss law firm in Geneva, he has so far stuck to the English Bar, where he has built up a very successful criminal and immigration practice.

Both these areas of practice embrace important parts of human rights law and Ian Macdonald QC is already heavily involved in human rights litigation. He was one of the human rights experts who took part in the Judicial Studies Board training of the English and Welsh judiciary. He is also an experienced leading counsel in public law, anti-discrimination law, inquests and a rag-bag of other interesting and sometimes obscure areas of the law. His Portuguese knighthood was bestowed by the President of Portugal in 1995 on the thirtieth anniversary of the murder of General Humberto Delgado in recognition of the role played by him and the two other lawyers, who were members of the International Commission of Inquiry into his disappearance, but that is another story!

Immigration and race relations

Ian Macdonald QC has been involved with race relations and immigration law since the days of opposition to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962. He was a member of a small group of Society of Labour Lawyers and of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) legal group in the 1960s, which helped draft proposals for race relations law in the United Kingdom. He wrote his first book for Butterworths on immigration and race relations law in 1969. His book Macdonald's Immigration Law and Practice (now co-edited with Frances Webber) is in its 5th edition and is the standard textbook used by most immigration practitioners, immigration officials, adjudicators and judges.

In 1981 he represented families of those who had died in the Deptford fire and became famous for riding his bike from the inquest to the High Court to challenge rulings of the Coroner. In 1987 he was appointed chair of an Inquiry into Racial Violence in Manchester Schools, following the murder in the playground of 13-year-old Ahmed Ullah by another pupil. His widely acclaimed report was published in book form under the title Murder in the Playground. In 1998 he was leading counsel for Duwayne Brooks in the Lawrence Inquiry, and is currently briefed with Terry Munyard on behalf of the Sylvester family in the forthcoming inquest into the death at police hands of the late Roger Sylvester.

On the immigration front, he has been instructed in many of the well-known antideportation campaign cases, and has been counsel, both as junior and as silk, in numerous reported immigration cases from Immigration Appeal Tribunal level up to the House of Lords, and has been to Strasbourg and to the European Court in Luxembourg.

His immigration practice continues to cover the whole field of immigration law, both court work and advice. He has represented clients in both the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice.

In 1998 he was appointed by the Attorney General as special advocate to the Immigration Appeals Commission dealing with national security cases, but resigned in December 2004, out of principle, over the indefinite detention without trial of suspected international terrorists.

Criminal law

Ian Macdonald QC started out in criminal law by doing cases of malpractice for the West Indian Standing Committee in the 1960s and was involved in major political trials during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. These include the Mangrove Nine, Angry Brigade, Balcombe Street Siege, Black Parents & Students Association cases in London and Manchester, including Jackie Berkeley, Newham Seven, DPP v Rose (HL), Satpal Ram, and the Ordtech (arms to Iraq) appeal case. In addition, has appeared in countless murder and other serious criminal cases.

Notable Cases

Immigration:

Abdi & Gawe v SSHD, HL [1996] Imm AR; Ravichandran v SSHD, CA [1996] Imm AR; Phull v SSHD, CA [1996] Imm AR, Kabba v SSHD, CA [1998] Imm AR; Rafiq v SSHD, CA [1998]; R v SSHD ex p Shingara, CA [1999] INLR; R v SSHD ex p Gardian QBD [1996] Imm AR; R v SSHD ex p Chavrimootoo, CA [1997] Imm AR; R v SSHD ex p B 2000 INLR, CA; R v SIAC ex p Rahman 2000 All ER, CA.

Crime:

Blackledge & others [1996] 1 Cr. App. R. 326, Duress [1997] 2 Cr. App. R. 247; Jones & Nelson [1999]; Lambert, Ali and Jordan [2000] The Times, 5 September 2000.

Publications

Resale Price Maintenance (1964); The Land Commission Act 1967 (co-author); Race Relations and Immigration Law (1969); Race Relations: The New Law (1977); Macdonald's Immigration Law and Practice (1983, 6th ed 2005) with Francis Webber and other members of the Immigration Team in both London and Manchester Chambers; The New Nationality Law with Nicholas Blake (1984).

Professional Associations

Immigration Law Practitioners' Association (President since 1984), Administrative Law Bar Association, Bar European Group and Criminal Bar Association.

Background and Personal profile

Ian Macdonald QC retired as Head of Chambers in London two years ago, but remains Head of Chambers in Manchester. He started life at the Bar in a very established set, specialising in local government and planning law, and had done a bit of teaching at Kingston Polytechnic (now upgraded to University). Then he heard of this zany bunch of young radicals who had set up shop in Lincoln's Inn and wore jeans in the Inns, and rushed to join them. Thus began Two Garden Court in 1974.

Languages

Fluent French, some Spanish.