Name Philip Sales Role High Court judge | Date appointed 2008 | |
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Alma mater Churchill College, Cambridge
Worcester College, Oxford Education Churchill College, Cambridge, Worcester College, Oxford | ||
Sir Philip James Sales (born 11 February 1962), styled The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Sales, is a British Lord Justice of Appeal.
He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, Churchill College, Cambridge (BA, 1983), and Worcester College, Oxford (BCL, 1984) and was the highest-earning lawyer in the New Labour government.
He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1985. In 1997, he was recruited as First Junior Treasury Counsel ("Treasury Devil"), a private practitioner barrister who represents the UK government in the civil courts. This caused "consternation" among senior lawyers, according to The Times due to his young age.
Sales used to be a practising barrister at law chambers 11KBW, of which former Prime Minister Tony Blair was a member in his capacity as junior Counsel. At the time of the appointment, there was uproar over Sales' appointment. According to The Guardian, a source close to the case referred to 11KBW as a "network of old boys and cronies", and that there was "no coincidence that the appointment came from Lord Irvine's and Tony Blair's old chambers". Sales also defended the New Labour government's decision against holding a public inquiry into the Iraq War in the High Court in 2005.
He was made a QC in 2006, deputy judge of the High Court from 2004–2008, and judge of the High Court of Justice (Chancery Division) since 2008. He has been a Judge of the Court of Appeal since July 2014.
In 2016, Sales as part of the UK's Court of Appeal ruled on 12 August 2016 that 130,000 Labour members who joined the party after 12 January 2016 would not be able to vote in the leadership contest, which over-ruled the previous High Court decision to allow the 130,000 disenfranchised Labour Party members to vote in the 2016 Labour Party leadership election.
In October 2016 Sales was one of the three judges forming the divisional court of the High Court in proceedings concerning the use of the royal prerogative for the issue of notification in accordance with Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (the Lisbon Treaty) (Santos and Miller, Applicants -v- Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, Respondent).