[5] Kerr regarded the introduction in 1971 of internment without trial in Northern Ireland as having been "calamitous for the rule of law".

However, he assessed his Troubles-era experience of the non-jury Diplock courts, introduced to prevent intimidation by paramilitaries, as broadly positive.

Citing the "distinguished civil libertarian", Sir Louis Blom-Cooper, he proposed that the non-jury system (in which there was an automatic right of appeal) "was in some senses superior to the jury trial.

[8] He was succeeded as Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland on 3 July 2009 by Sir Declan Morgan.

[10] In the 2016 Article 50 "Brexit", and 2019 prorogation of Parliament, cases before the Supreme Court, Lord Kerr was a "close questioner of the government submissions".

Following his retirement Lord Kerr defended the practice of judicial review and the £56m cost of creating the Supreme Court in Parliament Square.

He could understand that ministers might be "irritated by legal challenges which may appear to them to be frivolous or misconceived", butif we are operating a healthy democracy, what the judiciary provides is a vouching or checking mechanism for the validity [of] laws that parliament has enacted or the appropriate international treaties to which we have subscribed... the last thing we want is for government to have access to unbridled power.