Webb, William (judge)

Born in Brisbane, William Webb graduated from the University of Queensland with a bachelor of law degree and was admitted to the Queensland Bar Association in 1913. In 1915, he received the position of Queensland State Public Defender ( Eng. Public defender ), from 1917 to 1922 he held the position of Royal Advocate, in 1922-1925 - the chief attorney ( Eng. Solicitor-General ) of the state, simultaneously from 1925 to 1945 was chairman of the Queensland Arbitration Court.

On April 24, 1925, Webb was appointed judge of the Queensland Supreme Court and held this position in 1940, when he was appointed first as a senior judge (May 17) and then (June 27) as chief justice of the Supreme Court. Webb held this position until May 15, 1946, when he was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of Australia .

In 1943, Webb was appointed by the Australian Government as a member of the commission of inquiry into the crimes of the Japanese military. In the period from 1943 to 1945, Webb prepared three reports on the crimes of the Japanese military against Australian prisoners of war ^[1] . In 1944, Webb visited London to facilitate the United Nations War Crimes Commission .

In May 1946, Webb was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of Australia and held this post for 12 years. In 1946, when the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Occupation Forces in Japan, General Douglas MacArthur, formed the composition of the international military tribunal for the Far East , he proposed Webb for the presidency of the tribunal. Webb was the president of the international tribunal throughout the Tokyo trial of the main Japanese war criminals, which went on in 1946-1948. At the end of 1947, when the famous Supreme Bank of New South Wales v. Commonwealth of Nations case was considered in the Australian Supreme Court The Australian government, interested in Webb’s personal involvement in the process, tried to call him from Tokyo by sending a request to MacArthur. But the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Latham, personally contacted Webb and persuaded him not to leave Japan ^[2] . On November 12, 1948, after more than two years of trial, Webb, as chairman of the international military tribunal for the Far East, announced the verdict of the tribunal.

Webb resigned from the Supreme Court of Australia in 1958, after 12 years in office.

W. Webb married in 1917 Beatrice Agnew, married they had four daughters and two sons ^[3] .

William Webb died in 1972 in the Brisbane suburb of Naji and buried in a local cemetery ^[3] .

In 1954, W. Webb was promoted to the rank of Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire , in 1967 he was awarded the title of Honorary Doctor of Law at the University of Queensland.

A road in Belkonnen County, Canberra is named after him.

• International Military Tribunal for the Far East

• Smirnov L.N., Zaitsev E. B. Court in Tokyo. - M .: Military Publishing House, 1980 .-- 544 p.

• Fact Sheet 61 - World War II war crimes (neopr.) . National Archives of Australia . Date of treatment December 1, 2005. Archived November 30, 2005.
• John Latham in Owen Dixon's Eyes (Neopr.) . The Samuel Griffith Society . Date of treatment December 1, 2005.
• Guide to the papers of Sir William Webb (Neopr.) . Australian War Memorial . Date of treatment December 1, 2005.