Robert Jay

Sir Robert Maurice Jay (born 20 September 1959), styled The Hon. Mr Justice Jay, is a judge of the High Court of Justice of the Courts of England and Wales. He was counsel to the Leveson Inquiry.

Early life Jay was born on 20 September 1959. His parents were Professor Barrie Samuel Jay, a consultant surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital, and Marcelle Ruby Jay, née Byre, a geneticist.

He was educated at King's College School, a private fee paying school for boys in Wimbledon in South West London. He was a recorder from 2000 to 2013 and was approved to sit as a deputy High Court judge. He was counsel to the Leveson Inquiry into phone-hacking and media ethics, when he came to public attention due to televising and other reporting. On 4 June 2013, he was appointed a High Court judge, receiving the customary knighthood in the 2013 Special Honours, and was assigned to the Queen's Bench Division.

During the Leveson Inquiry, Jay became publicly known for his use of rarely used words – such as condign, pellucidly and adumbrate – for highlighting apparent discrepancies in witnesses' emailed descriptions of events, and possible collusion between witnesses, as "light refracted through two intermediate prisms", and for asides such as "I’m beginning to sound irritated, but I am". At one point, he was seen to mouth to colleagues: "This is such fun".

In May 2019, the Court of Appeal adopted his own terminology, describing one of Jay's own judgments as being hardly "pellucid". As well as levelling this mocking criticism at his legal writing, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal on every ground raised, including the ground that Jay had been so overbearing, rude, and bullying to the claimant (whose first language was not English but Polish, and who was acting without legal help), that the trial had been unfair. In June 2020, the UK Supreme Court went further and found that Jay had "harassed and intimidated [the claimant] in ways which surely would never have occurred if the claimant had been represented".

Jay is also hearing cases as member of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.

Personal life Jay is interested in history, art, classical music (particularly opera, and Wagner's Ring Cycle), and is also keen on chess,

Jay and his wife Deborah, who is an author, have a daughter.