John Richard Dendy Young, QC, SC (4 September 1907 – 11 July 1998) was a Cape Colony-born lawyer, politician, and judge.
Born in Cape Colony, Young joined the Public Service of Southern Rhodesia, before practising at the South Rhodesian Bar.
Having obtained a BA and a LLB as an external student at the University of South Africa, he resigned from the public service in 1934 and became a barrister, practising at Salisbury.
The rebel regime has actively acquiesced in this mode of functioning by acknowledging the validity of the High Court Orders and by carrying them into execution.
If order is to be maintained under some new system of law then it must be done by judges appointed by those responsible for the creation of the new system.Young was sworn in as the Chief Justice of Botswana in 1968, four days after his resignation from the Rhodesian bench, serving until 1971.
Departing unmourned by one government and forgotten by another, he found himself obliged after interim service as Chief Justice of Botswana to make what was for him a third or fourth career at the Cape Bar in 1971... to use Alan Paton's phrase, Dendy Young had a commitment to the rule of law, a high ideal of the worth and dignity of people, and a repugnance to authoritarianism.