Alan Huggins

Sir Alan Armstrong Huggins (Traditional Chinese: 赫健士爵士, 15 May 1921 – 10 December 2009) was a British colonial judge serving in places including Uganda, Hong Kong and Brunei. He spent nearly 40 years in the judiciary of Hong Kong, serving as a Vice-President of the Court of Appeal from 1980 to 1987. After the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, he was appointed a non-permanent Hong Kong judge of the Court of Final Appeal until 2003.

Biography

Early years Alan Huggins was born in Staines, Middlesex, on 15 May 1921 to William Armstrong Huggins, a Lloyd's underwriter, and Dale Copping. He had an elder brother called Eric. His family was related to Viscount Malvern (1883–1971), Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia. Huggins was educated at Radley College from 1936 to 1939. He went on to study law at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1939, where he subsequently obtained a MA degree in 1941.

Huggins was appointed a puisne judge of the Supreme Court in 1965. Hong Kong was then in a time of social instability, and at one point, his family received death threats and needed police protection after his winding-up of a local bank. He received the knighthood in person from Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in the following year. Huggins served as the acting Chief Justice on a number of occasions during his capacity as the Vice-President and retired subsequently in 1987. From 1991 to 2000, he was once again appointed as the Judicial Commissioner. He then became the President of the Court of Appeal of Brunei from 2000 until 2002.

Later years Huggins resided in Widdicombe, Devon, in his retirement but he was occasionally invited to serve as a Justice of Appeal for the Falkland Islands, the British Antarctic Territory, Gibraltar, St Helena, the British Indian Ocean Territory and Bermuda. He later served for another three-year term from 2000 to 2003.