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There are four conjoined devolution appeals being heard in the Supreme Court on 8, 9 and 10 December 2009 by a five judge panel, Lords Hope, Rodger, Walker, Brown and Kerr. Aidan O’Neill’s masterly two part case preview can be found here and here. The case of A v Essex County Council (details here) which was originally listed for 8 December has been re-listed for 24 March 2010. The case of Highland Crusader Offshore v Deutsche Bank was originally listed for 9 December but has been taken out of the Court’s latest version of its list. However, on the case details the hearing date remains 9 December. Something somewhere has gone wrong.
Three judgments are listed for 9 December 2009 before that now familiar entity the “hand down bench” – Lords Phillips, Brown and Clarke: R (A) v B, R v Horncastle and Barratt Homes v Dwr Cymru. The Horncastle case is the most anticipated human rights judgment so far – involving a potential direct conflict between London and Strasbourg. We will feature a case comment from Professor Andrew Choo of Matrix and the University of Warwick.
The last two of these judgments are the only remaining outstanding cases heard by the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords. From now on the Supreme Court will be giving judgments on cases heard in the Middlesex Guildhall. Only two “pre-Guildhall” Privy Council cases still await judgments. There are no Privy Council hearings or judgments listed this week (or at least none mentioned on its still unreliable website).
The “Case Details” displayed on the Supreme Court and JCPC websites remain as bad as ever. One eccentric feature that we have noticed is that if a search is conducted after going to “Browse Current Supreme Court Cases” the search sometimes fails to work properly but instead claims to offer 28 results – although only 20 can be displayed: an example of the results of such a search can be found here. We are afraid that our “must do better” verdict must remain. The Website started very well but has hardly improved over the past two months.
Judgments awaited
Judgments are awaited in 22 cases (as compared to 22 last week and 29 the week before) as follows:
Supreme Court
A v Her Majesty’s Treasury, heard 5-8 October 2009
A v Her Majesty’s Treasury (anonymity), heard 22 October 2009
R (E) v Governing Body of JFS, heard 27-29 October 2009
Agbaje v Akinnoye-Agbaje, heard 3-4 November 2009
AM (Somalia) v Entry Clearance Officer, heard 9-12 November 2009
Office of Communications v Information Commissioner, heard 17 November 2009
Tomlinson v Birmingham City Council, heard 23 and 24 November 2009
Re S-B (Children) heard 25-26 November 2009
Norris v Government of United States, heard 30 November to 1 December 2009
RTS Flexible Systems v Molkerei Alois Muller heard 2-3 December 2009
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council:
Mega Management Limited v Southward Ventures Depositary Trust (The Bahamas), heard 31 March-1 April 2009
The Trinidad and Tobago Civil Rights Association v The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago (Trindidad & Tobago) heard 14 May 2009
Cyril Archibold Capron v Government of Turks and Caicos (Turks and Caicos), heard 5 October 2009
Lowell Lawrence v Financial Service Commission, (Jamaica), heard 6 October 2009
A-G of Trinidad & Tobago v Carmel Smith (Trinidad and Tobago), heard 13 October 2009
Herman Ramdass v Marilyn Bahaw-Banan (Trinidad and Tobago), heard 19 October 2009
Josine Johnson and Yuckan Balwant v A-G of Trinidad and Tobago (Trinidad and Tobago), heard 20 October 2009
Nadine Rodriguez v The Minister for Housing of the Government of Gibraltar (Gibraltar) heard 21 October 2009
Theresa Henry v Calixtus Henry (St Lucia) heard 4 November 2009
McNicholls v Judicial and Legal Service Commission (Trinidad and Tobago), heard 9 November 2009
Mossel Jamaica v Office of Utilities Regulation (Jamaica), heard 17 and 19 November 2009
O’Connor v Piccott (Jamaica), heard 30 November and 1 December 2009
