The work of the law lords/UK Supreme Court in 2009

Highlights of the work of the law lords/The UK Supreme Court is set out below:

1) The Appellate Committee of the House of Lords made 45 decisions and The UK Supreme Court  decided 17 cases.

2) The total of 62 cases compares with the figure of 74 for 2008 and 58 for 2007.

3) The 62 decisions covered 79 appeals – 73 from England and Wales, 5 appeals form Northern Ireland and 1 from Scotland.

4) The composition  of the court changed in 2009 with retirements from Lord Hoffman, Lord Carswell and Lord Scott, with Lord Neuberger becoming Master of the Rolls.

5) Lord Collins became the first solicitor to be appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, Lord Kerr was the last of the 112 law lords to be appointed since 1876 and Lord Clarke became the first person to be appointed directly to the UK Supreme Court without first having sat as a law lord.

6) The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, heard two cases concerning criminal law.

7) Lord Hope sat in 38 cases, Lord Brown sat in 36 cases, Lady Hale sat in 32 cases and Lord Neuberger sat in 31 cases.  Lord Hope presided in 28 cases (as Second Senior Law Lord and Deputy President of the UKSC) and Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers (former Senior Law Lord and President of the UKSC) presided in 27 cases.

The law lords also decided 45 cases when they sat in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

9) Of the 17 cases decided by the UKSC, 9 judges sat in the case concerning the entrace requirements for a Jewish School (R (on the application of E) v Governing Body of JFS [2009] UKSC 15); 7 judges heard a case concerning hearsay evidence (R v Horncastle [2009] UKSC 14) and 7 judges also sat in a case regarding the standard of proof in child care proceedings (S-B (Children) [2009] UKHL 17.

10) Of the 62 decisions, only 18 (13 by the House of Lords and five by the Supreme Court) were private law cases.  44 cases were disputes relating to criminal law or procedure, judicial review applications, or human rights claims against public authorities.  Only two cases related to tax law.

11) 3 cases have been decided by a single  “judgment of the court” as opposed to each law lord/Supreme Court Justice  providing a judgment that allows the appeal or giving a dissenting judgment. Speaking of dissents, the most notable of the Supreme Court so far is the 5 v 4 split in the case over whether a Jewish school had directly discriminated against an applicant (R (on the application of E) v Governing Body of JFS [2009] UKSC 15). 

12) High profile cases of the year were R (Purdy) v DPP [2009] UKHL 45, where the DPP was ordered to promulgate a policy identifying the circumstances he would take into account when exercising his discretion to prosecute people for aiding and abetting suicide. The Supreme Court’s decision that the Office of Fair Trading had no power to consider the fairness of charges imposed by banks for unauthorised overdrafts (OFT v Abbey National Plc [2009] UKSC 6 and that people who are the subject of control orders have the right to be told of the case against them so that they can mount a challenge to the orders (Home Secretary v AF [2009] UKHL 28).

It will be interesting to see whether the UKSC will consider itself bound by the 1966 Practice Statement that entitled the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords to depart from its own previous decisions.  Ideas and arguments from students on this topic would be most welcomed.

Extracted from an article by Brice Dickson, Professor of Law, Queen’s University Belfast