 When that constituency was abolished for the 1950 general election, he was re-elected for the new Leicester North East constituency.However, Donovan resigned from the House of Commons within weeks of the election, when he was appointed as a High Court judge, receiving the customary knighthood (his successor, Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas, also became a judge, in 1962).He was promoted to the Court of Appeal in 1960, when he also became a Privy Counsellor.