Mary Hogg

Dame Mary Claire Hogg, DBE (15 January 1947), styled The Hon. Mrs Justice Hogg, is a British lawyer and judge. She is the daughter of Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone and his wife, Mary Evelyn Martin, and is the sister of Douglas Hogg, 3rd Viscount Hailsham.

Educated at St Paul's Girls School, she was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1989. In 1995, she was named a judge of the High Court of Justice where she sits in the Family Division. At the time of her appointment she was only the seventh female High Court judge.

In 1995 she was awarded an honorary doctorate of law (LLD) by the University of Westminster, an institution founded by her great-grandfather Quintin Hogg.

Cases

Hogg caused controversy in 1996 when she ruled that a pregnant woman could be held in hospital against her will and forced to have her baby by Caesarean section. The woman had wanted to give birth naturally, but was advised by doctors that both she and the child were likely to die as she was suffering from pre-eclampsia. The ruling was later overturned at the Court of Appeal, which ruled that a pregnant woman could refuse medical help even if doing so risked her baby's life.

Disappeared British girl Madeleine McCann was made a ward of court, during summer 2007, on application by her parents.

During a court hearing on 7 July 2008 Hogg made an extraordinary plea to Madeleine's abductor to "show mercy and compassion" and reveal her whereabouts.

External links

• Justice Hogg: A career in child welfare, a profile by the BBC