It is with much regret we report that Master Kadri (Sibghatullah Kadri QC) sadly died on Tuesday 2 November, aged 84. The Inn’s flag will fly at half-mast on Thursday 4 November, in his memory.

Master Kadri was called to the bar in 1969. He went on to become a leading civil rights lawyer and an authority on immigration laws, Sharia law and race relations in Britain and was appointed the UK’s first-ever Pakistani Muslim Queen’s Counsel in 1989.

In 1973 he was a joint founder of the Society of Afro-Asian and Caribbean Lawyers, now known as the Society of Black Lawyers and was its first Chairman. In the 1980s the Bar Council recognised the Society’s effort to combat racism and a working party was established which lead to the formation of a permanent Race Relations Committee on which he served from 1983–85 and 1988-89. He remained at the forefront in the struggle against racial discrimination in legal education and at the Bar.

Master Kadri was elected a Governing Bencher of the Inn in 1997. Last year he was chair and plenary speaker of The Inner Temple’s first annual round table series ‘Race and the Legal Profession’. A recording of the session can be viewed on our website.

Details of any funeral and/or memorial service will be circulated as appropriate in due course.