Return to Contents
Jersey & Guernsey Law Review – October 2007
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
The Editor,
The Jersey and Guernsey Law Review,
Royal Court House,
Jersey,
JE1 1BA
Dear Sir,
1 When Advocate Philip Le Couteur died on the 31st March this year, there were probably few members of the Jersey legal profession left who knew him save by reputation, and possibly few of those who knew him, personally or by reputation, who realised how well deserved that reputation was. His passing went unremarked by the Jersey Evening Post, which may well have been what he would have preferred, but it would be unfortunate if the Jersey and Guernsey Law Review, the only learned periodical devoted to Channel Islands’ law, were to contain no record of the man who for intellectual powers and depth of learning was the pre-eminent Jersey lawyer of his generation, and possibly of the last century.
2 Philip Edgar Le Couteur was born on the 3rd February 1919 and educated at Victoria College. He left school in 1935 and entered the Judicial Greffe, which had only four years previously been separated from the newly constituted States Greffe, as a junior clerk. Of the Judicial Greffe when he joined he said, some sixty years later –
“Since I joined the Greffe in 1935 the changes that have taken place are unbelievable. At that time all the members of the staff, with the exception of about two, spoke Jersey French and a great deal of the chatter in the office and over the counter was in that language. As I had been brought up to speak that language this presented no difficulty and the advantages it brought to the understanding of the contracts and other legal documents that passed through the office cannot be over-emphasized.”
3 Exactly when Philip Le Couteur began to study for call to the Bar of England and Wales is not clear. The first report which I have seen of his passing any of the bar examinations is that of the Trinity Bar examinations which were held on the 16th May, 1938, and he completed the first part of the examinations for call in April 1940, a matter of months before the occupation of the Island by German troops. He studied by correspondence course, which makes his results even more outstanding. He obtained first class passes in paper after paper – only in the constitutional law and legal history paper was he awarded an upper second, but it should be added that no firsts were awarded for that paper in those examinations.
4 The Occupation made it impossible for him to sit for the final examinations until the Hilary examinations of 1944, when the papers were sent through the Red Cross. When he finally did so he obtained his customary first, and a certificate of honour. The Daily Telegraph report of the 1st June 1945 which includes this result is headed “Prisoners’ Bar Examinations”, and goes on to record that –
“Successes by prisoners of war and a student in Jersey in the 1944 examinations were announced yesterday by the Council of Legal Education.”
5 Congratulations followed the news. C. T. Le Quesne K.C. (who five years’ later, as Lieutenant-Bailiff, was to introduce the English style of judgment in what became the Jersey Judgments) wrote of his “splendid success”. His certificate of honour was signed by Lord du Parcq, a fellow Jerseyman, who wrote in his covering letter –
“I hope soon to have an opportunity of meeting you & of congratulating you personally”.
6 By June 1945 when the final result was announced the Occupation was over. Philip Le Couteur was by now Deputy Judicial Greffier, and his first step was to apply for call to the Jersey Bar. He took the oath of advocate of the Royal Court on the 23rd June 1945, but did not apply for call to the Bar of England and Wales until 1949. That application was accompanied by two recommendations, one from Advocate Philip Le Maistre, the Bâtonnier, and the other from the Bailiff, Sir (as he then was) Alexander Coutanche. He was eventually called on the 26th January 1950.
7 Philip Le Couteur was sworn in as Judicial Greffier on the 3rd January 1950, three weeks before his call to the to the Bar of England and Wales. He remained in office until 1969. He was then only fifty, but his sight had begun to fail him, and on the 18 th June, 1969, he resigned the office of Greffier. By the time I joined the Judicial Greffe in September 1971 he was already a legend. “It wouldn’t have happened in Philip Le Couteur’s time” became the catch phrase for any legal or procedural slip-up – in the end, for anything from a questionable judgment or erroneous Act of Court to a spilt cup of coffee.
8 During his term of office he, together with his Deputy Greffier, Sam Bisson, took over and completed the preparation for publication of a definitive text of Le Geyt’s Privileges, Loix et Coustumes following the death of Oliver Mourant, who had carried out the initial work. He was regularly consulted on abstruse points of law by lawyers who had exhausted all other avenues of enquiry. When the late Sir Peter Crill was sworn in as Attorney General the Evening Post of the 10th July 1969 reported that in his inaugural speech –
“He paid special tribute to the former Judicial Greffier, Mr. P. E. Le Couteur, and said that he wished to pay special tribute to him for the many times when he had come to the speaker’s rescue when he was floundering in the depths of some of the more obscure parts of the coutume.”
9 A file containing letters of advice which he had written on subjects as diverse as the correct interpretation of a modern statute or the payment of feudal dues in Jersey and in neighbouring jurisdictions were kept in the Judicial Greffe and referred to at need as an authority.
10 In 1956 Philip Le Couteur married Sheila Orange, who survives him. After his premature retirement they lived quietly at their home in St. Brelade. They had one son, Charles, who lives with his wife and two young children on the nearby farm. When the Judicial Greffe inaugurated the Philip Le Couteur summons room Philip Le Couteur’s failing health made it impossible for him to attend, but he was represented by the members of his family, including one very small grandson who seemed quite at home with the computers which had been undreamt of in his grandfather’s day.
11 I had the privilege of corresponding with Philip Le Couteur from 1993 until shortly before his death, and never failed to be impressed by the keenness of his intellect and the extent and profundity of his knowledge of the law of Jersey and related legal systems. There seemed to be no question so arcane that he could not produce an answer to it. He was an avid reader of the Jersey Law Review, which I sent him on a regular basis, and would write within a very short space of time commenting on any article which caught his interest. There were, obviously, some articles which did not interest him at all, but when one did his comments were unfailingly incisive and illuminating. He welcomed the extension of the Review’s ambit to Guernsey; while his health permitted, he himself had regularly visited Guernsey to consult the books in the Priaulx Library, and one of the articles which took his attention was that by Darryl Ogier in the October 2005 Review on the origins of Guernsey’s parishes, of which he wrote –
“The Guernsey Article by Darryl Ogier is most interesting … Much of it must apply to Jersey too and tries to explain many points that have always puzzled me about the formation of the parishes.”
12 He would have felt equal enthusiasm for the proposal to found an Institute of Jersey Law, for the preservation and furtherance of the knowledge of the Island’s law which such an Institute would go so far to promote was very dear to his heart.
13 It is a matter for profound regret that by the time the Jersey Law Review came into being Philip Le Couteur’s health prevented him from contributing to it. If there was anyone whose knowledge and understanding of Jersey law we would have been fortunate to share, it was he. As it is, all that survives is the text of a talk which he gave on hypothecation and guarantee in 1955, which he kindly allowed the Review to print in the February 1998 edition. The loss is ours.
Yours faithfully,
S.C. Nicolle,
Law Officers’ Department
Morier House
St. Helier
Jersey JE1 1DD
Return to Contents