Terence Michael Elkan Barnet Etherton, Baron Etherton, (born 21 June 1951) is a British retired judge and member of the House of Lords. He was the Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice from 2016 to 2021 and Chancellor of the High Court from 2013 to 2016. Early life Etherton attended Holmewood House School and St Paul's School, and studied history and law at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was a member of the British fencing team (sabre) from 1977 to 1980 and was selected to compete at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, but joined the boycott in protest against the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Legal career Etherton was called to the bar (Gray's Inn) in 1974 and became a Queen's Counsel in 1990. He was appointed a High Court judge on 11 January 2001 and assigned to the Chancery Division, receiving the customary knighthood. In August 2006, he was appointed Chairman of the Law Commission, the statutory independent body created by the Law Commissions Act 1965 to keep the law under review and to recommend reform where needed. On 29 September 2008, on expansion of the Court of Appeal from 37 to 38 judges, Etherton was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal. He was sworn in on 29 September 2008, and received the customary appointment to the Privy Council. On 11 January 2013, he was appointed Chancellor of the High Court. On 3 October 2016, Etherton succeeded Lord Dyson as Master of the Rolls. In October 2016 Etherton was one of the three judges forming the divisional court of the High Court in proceedings concerning the use of the royal prerogative for the issue of notification in accordance with Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (the Lisbon Treaty) (Santos and Miller, Applicants -v- Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, Respondent). His role in this judgment meant that he appeared in an infamous front-cover of the Daily Mail (Enemies of the People), and in a move which was widely seen as attacking his homosexuality, the Mail Online chastised Etherton for being an "openly-gay ex-Olympic fencer". The reference was swiftly removed, though without apology. In June 2019, Etherton, Sir Stephen Irwin and Sir Rabinder Singh found that ministers had breached British law when they "made no concluded assessments of whether the Saudi-led coalition had committed violations of international humanitarian law in the