Joshua Rozenberg

Joshua Rozenberg
KC (hon)
Rozenberg in 2017
Born
Joshua Rufus Rozenberg

(1950-05-30) 30 May 1950 (age 74)
United Kingdom
Occupation(s)Solicitor, journalist, author
Notable credit(s)BBC News
Daily Telegraph legal affairs editor
SpouseMelanie Phillips
Children2
Joshua Rozenberg's voice
recorded 10 March 2017
Websitehttp://www.rozenberg.net

Joshua Rufus Rozenberg KC (hon) (born 30 May 1950) is a British solicitor, legal affairs commentator, and journalist.

Education and career

Joshua Rozenberg was educated at Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith and Wadham College, University of Oxford, where he took a law degree.[1] He qualified as a solicitor in 1976 after training at Dixon Ward solicitors in Richmond, London, although he never practised law.[2]

Rozenberg began his career in journalism in 1975 at the BBC,[3] where he launched Law in Action on BBC Radio 4 in 1984.[4] At the BBC he worked as a producer, reporter and then legal correspondent. In 2000 he left to join The Daily Telegraph as legal affairs editor,[5] where he remained until the end of 2008.[3][6]

He resigned from his Telegraph position in 2007, explaining in 2015 his reasons for doing so. While reporting for the newspaper on the House of Lords legal ruling on the applicability of the Human Rights Act 1998 outside Britain, Telegraph editors pressured him to include a statement that, under the ruling, legal claimants against the actions of British Army in Iraq would be entitled to millions of pounds in compensation. In Rozenberg's view this was not accurate, and he refused to include the statement. According to Rozenberg, Telegraph news editors later altered one of his reports without his knowledge to include such a statement, one that Rozenberg had warned them was false; the claim appeared under his by-line.[a][2][8]

After leaving the Telegraph Rozenberg wrote a column for the Evening Standard.[9] A freelance journalist since his Telegraph tenure, he writes regular columns for the Law Society Gazette and The Critic. He wrote a weekly column for The Guardian's online law page from 2010 to 2016. Also in 2010, nearly 25 years after leaving the radio programme, he returned to the BBC to present Law in Action until its final edition in March 2024.[4][10][11] He continues to be seen on BBC Television News as a legal affairs analyst.[citation needed]

Recognition

Rozenberg holds honorary doctorates in law from the University of Hertfordshire (1999), Nottingham Trent University (2012), the University of Lincoln (2014) and the University of Law (2014). Rozenberg is also an honorary bencher of Gray's Inn, and is a non-executive board member of the Law Commission.[12] He has won the Bar Council's Legal Reporting Award four times.[4] In January 2016, he was made an honorary Queen's Counsel (now known as King's Counsel; KC).[13]

Publications

  • Joshua Rozenberg (12 January 1995). The Search for Justice. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-62859-6.
  • Joshua Rozenberg (24 April 1997). Trial of Strength, Richard Cohen Books, ISBN 1-86066-094-0.
  • Joshua Rozenberg (11 March 2004). Privacy and the Press. OUP Oxford. ISBN 0-19-925056-1.
  • Rozenberg, Joshua (21 April 2020). Enemies of the People?. Bristol University Press. ISBN 9781529204506.

Personal life

Rozenberg is married to journalist Melanie Phillips; the couple have two children.[5] He is Jewish.[14]

Notes

  1. ^ The House of Lords case being, Al-Skeini and others (Respondents) v. Secretary of State for Defence (Appellant); Al-Skeini and others (Appellants) v. Secretary of State for Defence (Respondent)[7]

References

  1. ^ Rubinstein, William D.; Jolles, Michael A.; Rubinstein, Hilary L. (2011). "Rozenberg, Joshua Rufus". The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 832. ISBN 978-1-349-51951-4.
  2. ^ a b Smith-Roberts, Adam (28 July 2020). "Man in the middle: Interview with Joshua Rozenberg". Counsel Magazine. He refused but the text of his article was changed without his knowledge before it hit the printing presses.
    "It might not have been noticed by many, but one judge did spot the embellishment and raised it with Rozenberg. He felt he had no choice but to go. 'You can't tolerate your stuff being distorted and errors being put into your copy just because it makes it a better story,' he says 'and that's why I resigned.'
  3. ^ a b "Joshua Rozenberg". The Times. 21 April 2008. Archived from the original on 5 December 2008. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  4. ^ a b c "Joshua Rozenberg returns as presenter of Law in Action" (Press release). BBC Press Office. 26 May 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  5. ^ a b Ashley, Jackie (6 June 2006). "The multicultural menace, anti-semitism and me". The Guardian.
  6. ^ "Joshua Rozenberg". Noel Gay. Archived from the original on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  7. ^ United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions: Judgments – Al-Skeini & Ors (Respondents) v. Secretary of State for Defence (Appellant), Al-Skeini and others (Appellants) v. Secretary of State for Defence (Respondent) (Consolidated Appeals) [2007] UKHL 26
  8. ^ The Secret Barrister (2020). Fake law: the truth about justice in an age of lies. London: Picador. p. 285. ISBN 978-1-5290-0994-1.
  9. ^ "Joshua Rozenberg". Evening Standard. Archived from the original on 23 December 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  10. ^ "Joshua Rozenberg returns to Radio 4's Law in Action". Press Gazette. 27 May 2010. Archived from the original on 16 June 2011. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  11. ^ "Law in Action – farewell edition". BBC Radio 4. 26 March 2024. Retrieved 26 March 2024.
  12. ^ "Joshua Rozenberg QC (Hon) and Baroness (Ruth) Deech DBE QC (Hon) appointed Non-Executive Board Members". Law Commission. 9 May 2019.
  13. ^ "Queen's Counsel in England & Wales: 2015 to 2016". Gov.UK. Ministry of Justice.
  14. ^ Rozenberg, Joshua (17 December 2015). "UK marriage law is out of step with the times". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 March 2020.