Lord Justice Leveson | MediaGuardian 100 2012
Job: lord justice of appeal
Age: 63
Industry: law
2011 ranking: 10
Lord Justice Leveson ranks high again this year with his eagerly awaited report into the culture, practice and ethics of the press due later in 2012. Plucked out of the courtroom by David Cameron, the Liverpool-born judge has had to handle the most high profile and contentious public inquiry into the media since Hutton – at times showing a sure touch handling the evidence, while at others struggling with presentation and politics.
The judge proved fearless in inviting the famous and infamous into his courtroom, beginning with the unexpectedly star-studded lineup of the first week, in which Hugh Grant, Steve Coogan and JK Rowling were among those who helped get the inquiry onto the nightly news bulletins.During 97 days of witness hearings spread across eight months and at a cost of nearly £4m, the Leveson inquiry transformed into a standing commission examining a range of controversies – including Jeremy Hunt's behind the scenes relationship with James Murdoch during News Corporation's bid for BSkyB – and supplied many moments of low drama, such as when Rebekah Brooks revealed that David Cameron used to sign off texts to her with the acronym "LOL".
But Leveson often showed irritation with the media, complaining that journalists misunderstood his occasional musings from the chair as indications of his thinking. There were several surprising battles over the reporting of the inquiry, with Paul Staines, AKA Guido Fawkes, and John Mullin, the editor of the Independent on Sunday, after each printed material that partly been based on evidence that leaked out ahead of it being published Leveson's team. And he stood accused of being naive when he sent out a 116-page document of potential criticisms of the media in his final report earlier this month, but insisted that it remain secret and discussion confidential.
His biggest test, though, lies ahead. It will be all about what report he chooses to write – whether he proposes legislation to restrain press excesses. The judge has been quick to argue that the Press Complaints Commission was "not really a regulator" but "a complaints mechanism" and is exercised by the cost for ordinary individuals who need to seek redress. He argued that he did "not want to make more work for lawyers" in the future and insisted that he had to produce a solution that would satisfy "the public at large" not just the press. But his worry remains that his report may end up "on the second shelf of a journalism professor's study", unread and ignored. The next couple of months will decide just that.