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Lord Reed was sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice earlier today.

Lord Reed is the fourth Justice to be sworn in since the Supreme Court was inaugurated in October 2009.  His appointment, announced on 20 December 2011, follows the death of Lord Rodger of Earlsferry last year and sees a continuation of the tradition, begun in the House of Lords, that two of the Supreme Court’s Justices have comprehensive experience of the Scottish legal system.

Lord Reed will begin sitting tomorrow (Tuesday 7 February) among a panel of five Justices sitting as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council hearing a planning dispute case over the commercial development of ‘New Kingston’ in Jamaica, in J & O Operations Limited and another; Eloise Mulligan and Grace Wong (Appellants) v. The Kingston & Saint Andrew Corporation (Respondent) and cross-appeal.

Lord Reed has been a senior judge in Scotland for 13 years being a Senator of the College of Justice since 1998.  He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in July 1983 where he undertook a wide range of civil work. He was appointed to the Bench in 1998 and was promoted to the Inner House in January 2008.  During 1999 he sat as an ad hoc judge of the European Court of Human Rights and has sat in both the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

The occasion is being marked with the Court’s arrival on micro-blogging site Twitter.  The Supreme Court has allowed Tweeting from its courtrooms on most occasions since February 2011, but today marks the first time that the Court itself has ‘tweeted’.