Senior Magistrate

Malcolm Simmons

His Honour Judge Malcolm Simmons is a UK-qualified lawyer and judge. He qualified in England in 1992 and has worked in England and Wales and overseas. He was a senior international judge for over thirteen years.

In 2001, Judge Malcolm Simmons was appointed Head of Office of the Independent Judicial Commission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, an organisation established to conduct a comprehensive review of the judiciary and to make recommendations for reform.

In 2003, Judge Simmons was invited to become an international member of the High Judicial Council in Bosnia. The Council comprised respected international justice experts whose role it was to reform the administration of justice.

In 2004, Judge Simmons was appointed an international judge of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, assigned to the war crime and serious organised crime panels. He spent the next four years presiding in complex serious organised crime cases. He was also a judge in the first terrorism case to come before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

When his judicial mandate in Bosnia came to an end in 2008, he was appointed a judge of the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo.

In 2014, he was appointed president of EU international judges. In that role, he managed a team of over forty international judges drawn from most EU Member States and included judges from the United States. He continued to preside in war crime and serious organised crime cases including murder, organ trafficking, drug trafficking, people trafficking and complex financial crime.

In addition to his judicial function, Judge Malcolm Simmons served as an international member of the High Judicial Council in Bosnia & Herzegovina and the Kosovo Judicial Council. He managed projects including monitoring and evaluating the performance of courts; judicial performance; the introduction of disciplinary rules for judges and prosecutors; access to justice for women, children and vulnerable adults; restructuring the court system; introduction of a computerised case management system; creation of a country-wide backlog reduction strategy for both criminal and civil cases and introducing a system to improve the administration of commercial disputes.

Judge Simmons also served as Chair of the Disciplinary Appeal Panel for Judges, President of the Review Panel for Judicial Appointments and Chair of the Parole Board.

Since 2017, Judge Simmons has been an international justice advisor and has worked in Serbia, Pakistan and Maldives, advising the Supreme Courts and senior judiciary.

At the request of the Maldives Judicial Academy, Judge Simmons also assessed the Judicial Training curriculum and advising on reform of judicial training and developing training modules and materials. He conducted a comprehensive training needs assessment that sought the opinion of judges, court users and wider society on improving the delivery of justice.

Most recently, Judge Simmons developed and rolled-out a judicial performance evaluation scheme in the Maldives. As part of that policy, all judges will be subject to regular evaluations.

In 2022, Judge Simmons was invited to lead the European Commission project, ‘Supporting Justice Reform and Anti-Corruption’ in Maldives. This is a flagship project of the European External Action Service.

In February 2022, Judge Malcolm Simmons was appointed resident judge in the Falkland Islands. His jurisdiction covers South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and British Antarctica. He is also Her Majesty’s Coroner for the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and British Antarctica.

In 2023 Judge Simmons delivered training on ‘Command Responsibility’ and evidence for Ukrainian war crime investigators.