Brian Keith

Sir Brian Richard Keith (born 14 April 1944) is a former British judge of the High Court of England and Wales styled as The Honourable Mr Justice Keith. He was previously a judge of the Court of Appeal of Hong Kong. Education and early career Keith is the son of Alan Keith, the broadcaster best known for devising and presenting the long-running programme Your Hundred Best Tunes on BBC's Radio 2, who was of Russian-Jewish descent. He was educated at University College School, Hampstead, and read law at Lincoln College, Oxford. From 1966-67, he was a John F. Kennedy Fellow at Harvard Law School. He was called to the bar at Inner Temple in 1968 and elected a bencher in 1996. He was appointed an Assistant Recorder in 1988 and appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1989. He practised in employment and administrative law from the chambers of Lord Irvine of Lairg QC, where a fellow member was Tony Blair. Judicial career in Hong Kong In 1991, Keith became a judge of the High Court of Hong Kong (which was renamed the Court of First Instance when Hong Kong's Supreme Court was renamed the High Court in 1997). In 1996 he became the first judge in charge of the High Court's new Constitutional and Administrative Law List in preparation for the resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong by China in 1997. He was promoted to the Hong Kong Court of Appeal in 1999, serving until 2001. He was appointed a Recorder in 1993.