Obituary: Lord Wilberforce

Lord Wilberforce, who has died aged 95, was one of the most civilised and balanced judges of the 20th century. He believed in common sense in the application of established principle, he looked carefully at the facts of each case, and he was not dazzled by theoretical and conceptual arguments. Exaggerated claims, whether for schemes of tax avoidance or for openness in government, were given short shrift, but he was prepared to accept advances in the law once he agreed that the change was realistic and rooted in principle.

His judicial career began in 1961, his appointment as a Chancery judge in that year bringing a welcome breath of fresh air to the Chancery Division. His courteous, informal and rapid despatch of business contrasted vividly with an ancien regime where those qualities were conspicuous by their absence. From the Chancery Division, he was promoted directly to the House of Lords in 1964, and he served as a Lord Appeal in Ordinary until 1982. His contribution to the law was considerable, especially in public international law, commercial and administrative law.

Throughout his judicial career he fully recognised the need for the law to change in appropriate circumstances, but he also accepted the desirability of "cautious moves within established principle", words which he used in writing about one of his colleagues in the House of Lords, Lord Diplock. This caution was evident in his approach to the law in many areas.

In the law of property, where Lord Denning, the Master of the Rolls, attempted a great leap forward in inventing the "deserted wife's equity", protecting the rights of women who had been deserted by their husbands, Lord Wilberforce judicially rejected what he saw as a departure from sound principles of real property law. When legislation was subsequently introduced in 1966 to change the law in favour of deserted wives, he spoke on the floor of the Lords in support of the measure, a position entirely consistent with his belief in the overriding authority of parliament.

His respect for both established principle and the authority of parliament was supplemented by a genuine sympathy for and understanding of administrators and others who unexpectedly found themselves before the courts in civil cases. His wartime experience included "some very valuable time in Whitehall", and in the Lords he claimed once that "by contrast with most of my judicial colleagues" he had "a little understanding of the ways in which government works from the inside".

Lord Wilberforce brought clarity of thought and lucidity of expression to many challenging areas of the law. He disliked battles about terminology, believing them to distract rather than illuminate, indicating in a leading case that the word nullity brings with it "the difficult distinction between what is void and what is voidable, and I certainly do not wish to recognise that the distinction exists or to analyse it if it does".

His clarity and lucidity were displayed often in the Lords, where he participated vigorously in the legislative proceedings. In recent years, he took part in debates over the Human Rights Bill 1997 (he welcomed the greater awareness of human rights nationally and internationally), on the Arbitration Bill 1995 (he once said that a "good arbitration system is a vital part of our whole system of justice"), on the Trustee Bill 2000, and on the Access to Justice Bill 1999.

In wider debates he spoke about the importance of law reform, urging simplification and reduction in the amount of legislation and greater consolidation of our existing laws. He often spoke of the role of the judiciary in society, commenting in a debate in 1996 on the way that judges "have become much more outward-looking and much more concerned with social needs and social imperatives", adding characteristically that there are "signs now of a rather more cautious attitude" in the area of public law.

Richard Wilberforce, the great-great-grandson of the anti-slavery reformer William Wilberforce, was brought up in India, where his father was a judge of the Lahore High Court. He was educated at Winchester and at New College, Oxford, where he read classics and took a first. Lord Hailsham once wrote that Lord Wilberforce was "one of the supreme examples of the advantage in the upper reaches in the law enjoyed by a man who did not take his first degree in the honours school of jurisprudence". There is no doubt that he brought varied experience and different perspectives to the law, stemming from his university studies, his wartime experience (from which he emerged as an honorary brigadier), and his active work for numerous bodies, including Anti-Slavery International, of which he had been joint president since 1970. In 2000, he took part in a debate on slavery in the Lords, where the Earl of Sandwich paid tribute to the work of Lord Wilberforce and his forebears. He spoke twice on the subject in 2002.

He was particularly involved in the work of the International Law Association and enjoyed the respect of international lawyers everywhere. To mark his 23 years as executive chairman, a liber amicorum for him was published in 1987: it had a tribute by the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, and the other contributions reflected his immense services to public international law, and also to commercial, European Community and public law.

Outside court, he chaired inquiries into a dispute in the electricity supply industry in 1970-71, and into the mine-workers' dispute in 1972; in that he was under pressure to produce a settlement that could speedily end the dispute, and he succeeded - though not without criticism about the reasoning which he adopted. In a debate in 2000 on the appointment of judges to carry out inquiries, he said that he regarded the appointment to courts of inquiry as "a very great honour and privilege".

His interest in academic matters was reflected in his Prize Fellowship at All Souls, his role as High Steward of Oxford from 1967 to 1990, his honorary fellowships at New College and Wolfson College in Oxford, a number of honorary degrees, his participation in numerous conferences, and in his enthusiastic and fully committed work as chancellor of the University of Hull from 1978-94. He was a regular attender at special lectures delivered by judges, lawyers and academics.

He had been called to the bar in 1932 at the Middle Temple, where he later became a bencher; and he became a Queen's Counsel in 1954. After his retirement in 1982, he remained closely involved in commercial arbitration, where he was much in demand. He believed that a good arbitration system was a vital part of our whole system of justice.

He was a patient man, with a wry sense of humour and a broad-minded and undogmatic style (he had a self-confessed interest in the turf, opera and travel). He enjoyed the equal respect of the legal profession, the judiciary and the academic world. His ability to move with the times, and his disarming informality of manner, endeared him to a younger generation of lawyers.

Lord Wilberforce is survived by his French-born wife Yvette, whom he married in 1947, and by their son and daughter.

· Richard Orme Wilberforce, law lord, born March 11 1907; died February 15 2003