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> Our supreme court is young (est 2006 or so) This is not the case at all. The "Supreme Court" in the UK is the latest version of the UK's "court of last resor

by giobox 3y ago

> Our supreme court is young (est 2006 or so) This is not the case at all. The "Supreme Court" in the UK is the latest version of the UK's "court of last resort". Previous to this it was the House of Lords one would appeal to (it had functions to sit as UK's top court as well as the 2nd chamber). The House Of Lords was the Court of last resort for the UK since at least the 1800s. From the Wikipedia page on the "new" UK supreme court: "It assumed the judicial functions of the House of Lords, which had been exercised by the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary (commonly called "Law Lords"), the 12 judges appointed as members of the House of Lords to carry out its judicial business as the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords." Indeed, the first 12 justices on the "new" supreme court where just the exact same 12 Law Lords from the previous House of Lords system. The 2006 "Supreme Court" rebrand was a continuing reform of the existing system, not some new level of appellate court the UK had never had before. In reality, they both perform the same top appellate court/court of last resort role. You could bring the same types of cases to the House of Lords as you can to the Supreme Court, and the Law Lords presided over many of the UK's most significant constitutional cases. There are various political reasons why this "rebrand" to Supreme Court was done, but I've typed enough and can't be bothered delving further into this in a reply. It's fundamentally a continuation of the previous long standing Court, and precedent from the many, many pre-existing HoL Court decisions is equal in power to that of the Supreme Court's decisions. Had Gina Miller's case been say 10-15 years earlier, the HoL would have heard and decided the case too - she did not need the existence of a "new" "Supreme Court". > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_functions_of_the_House_of_Lords https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_functions_of_the_Hous... > https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/about-lords/lords-types/law-lords/ https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/about-lords/lo...

hkt 3y ago
> Had Gina Miller's case been say 10-15 years earlier, the HoL would have heard and decided the case too - she did not need the existence of a "new" "Supreme Court". The system of appointment to the SC is rather different to the HoL as it draws from the judiciary and merely being a Lord isn't enough. There was initial continuity in membership, but there has now been nearly two decades of divergence. The HoL was hereditary for much of its history as I'm sure you well know. It is of course now a house of political appointees, cronies, and people who have probably paid _someone_ to be in charge. https://www.supremecourt.uk/about/appointments-of-justices.html https://www.supremecourt.uk/about/appointments-of-justices.h... explains more about the system of appointments. It has an independent commission which makes the selections. This is where the discontinuity occurs: the fact that as time goes by the judges of the SC are increasingly apolitical. That gives them more standing to make decisions independent of government, and also independent of the historic bias of the HoL (which has been majority Tory for rather a lot of its history). The thinking goes that the fusion of the SC and HoL as was the case in the days of the Law Lords made the highest court a political one. The splitting of them in terms of form and personnel has fundamentally changed the character of the judgements we can expect. I'd have expected the old HoL to have gone against Miller, which is why I used her as an example. It is worth noting that had the SC not been split from the HoL after life peerages became the majority of that house, we'd be in danger of those political appointees and the like being the basis of the court. It was therefore necessary and not a "rebrand".
- giobox 3y ago
  I practiced law in the UK during the transition; fundamentally they operate very similarly and the cases they hear are essentially identical. So much so, HoL decisions have equal precedential value. The UK did not gain some new level of appellate Court as a result of this change. The rebrand to Supreme Court and change to appointment processes do indeed remove some of the risk of perception of political interference, but if you look at the historical operations of the HoL as an appelate Court in the last 80 years, political interference was much more a hypothetical problem than a real one - the HoL routinely passed decisions that greatly upset the ruling parties of the day, and the appointments of Law Lords was greatly removed from the appointments of rank and file life peers etc. > The system of appointment to the SC is rather different to the HoL as it draws from the judiciary and merely being a Lord isn't enough. The law lords where almost always drawn from the Judiciary too in modern history, sitting here right now I can't think of one who didn't have a very significant judicial career prior to becoming a law lord. The government was able to simply grant them a peerage permitting them to become a law lord, which is not 1000 miles removed from the Supreme Court's life-long appointments. The HoL required retirement at 75 for a Law Lord exactly the same as is expected for a new SC justice too. > It is worth noting that had the SC not been split from the HoL after life peerages became the majority of that house, we'd be in danger of those political appointees and the like being the basis of the court. It was therefore necessary and not a "rebrand". This is nonsense. Only the law lords sat on the court. It was not just "any" peer who could sit on the Court, of which there were only 12 members. "To be appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary under the 1876 Act, a person was required to have been a practising barrister for a period of fifteen years or to have held a high judicial office—as Lord Chancellor (before 2005) or judge of the Court of Appeal, High Court or Court of Session—for a period of two years. Lords of Appeal in Ordinary were required to retire from judicial office at 70 or 75 years of age, though as barons they continued to serve as members of the House of Lords in its legislative capacity for life." > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Appeal_in_Ordinary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Appeal_in_Ordinary There are many things that are arguably wrong/undesirable about an unelected second legislative chamber such as the HoL, but the operations of its Court were arguably one of its least egregious short-comings, and very separate from the general workings of the HoL at large.

by giobox 3y ago

hkt 3y ago

> Had Gina Miller's case been say 10-15 years earlier, the HoL would have heard and decided the case too - she did not need the existence of a "new" "Supreme Court". The system of appointment to the SC is rather different to the HoL as it draws from the judiciary and merely being a Lord isn't enough. There was initial continuity in membership, but there has now been nearly two decades of divergence. The HoL was hereditary for much of its history as I'm sure you well know. It is of course now a house of political appointees, cronies, and people who have probably paid _someone_ to be in charge. https://www.supremecourt.uk/about/appointments-of-justices.html https://www.supremecourt.uk/about/appointments-of-justices.h... explains more about the system of appointments. It has an independent commission which makes the selections. This is where the discontinuity occurs: the fact that as time goes by the judges of the SC are increasingly apolitical. That gives them more standing to make decisions independent of government, and also independent of the historic bias of the HoL (which has been majority Tory for rather a lot of its history). The thinking goes that the fusion of the SC and HoL as was the case in the days of the Law Lords made the highest court a political one. The splitting of them in terms of form and personnel has fundamentally changed the character of the judgements we can expect. I'd have expected the old HoL to have gone against Miller, which is why I used her as an example. It is worth noting that had the SC not been split from the HoL after life peerages became the majority of that house, we'd be in danger of those political appointees and the like being the basis of the court. It was therefore necessary and not a "rebrand".

giobox 3y ago
I practiced law in the UK during the transition; fundamentally they operate very similarly and the cases they hear are essentially identical. So much so, HoL decisions have equal precedential value. The UK did not gain some new level of appellate Court as a result of this change. The rebrand to Supreme Court and change to appointment processes do indeed remove some of the risk of perception of political interference, but if you look at the historical operations of the HoL as an appelate Court in the last 80 years, political interference was much more a hypothetical problem than a real one - the HoL routinely passed decisions that greatly upset the ruling parties of the day, and the appointments of Law Lords was greatly removed from the appointments of rank and file life peers etc. > The system of appointment to the SC is rather different to the HoL as it draws from the judiciary and merely being a Lord isn't enough. The law lords where almost always drawn from the Judiciary too in modern history, sitting here right now I can't think of one who didn't have a very significant judicial career prior to becoming a law lord. The government was able to simply grant them a peerage permitting them to become a law lord, which is not 1000 miles removed from the Supreme Court's life-long appointments. The HoL required retirement at 75 for a Law Lord exactly the same as is expected for a new SC justice too. > It is worth noting that had the SC not been split from the HoL after life peerages became the majority of that house, we'd be in danger of those political appointees and the like being the basis of the court. It was therefore necessary and not a "rebrand". This is nonsense. Only the law lords sat on the court. It was not just "any" peer who could sit on the Court, of which there were only 12 members. "To be appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary under the 1876 Act, a person was required to have been a practising barrister for a period of fifteen years or to have held a high judicial office—as Lord Chancellor (before 2005) or judge of the Court of Appeal, High Court or Court of Session—for a period of two years. Lords of Appeal in Ordinary were required to retire from judicial office at 70 or 75 years of age, though as barons they continued to serve as members of the House of Lords in its legislative capacity for life." > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Appeal_in_Ordinary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Appeal_in_Ordinary There are many things that are arguably wrong/undesirable about an unelected second legislative chamber such as the HoL, but the operations of its Court were arguably one of its least egregious short-comings, and very separate from the general workings of the HoL at large.