This blog is dedicated to the UK Supreme Court. The UK Supreme Court is the UK's highest court; its judgments bind lower courts and thus shape the development of English Law. Since 1399, the Law Lords, the judges of the most senior court in the country, have sat within Parliament. From October 2009, however, they have moved to an independent court in the Middlesex Guildhall. To mark this historic development, this blog has been set up to provide commentary on the UK Supreme Court and its judgments.

The UKSC

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (“Supreme Court”) was established by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.

The Supreme Court is a wholly independent court of appeal which further separates the powers exercised by the judiciary and the upper house of parliament in the UK. It replaced the House of Lords as the highest appellate court in the United Kingdom (other than for Scottish Criminal cases) in October 2009 and also assumed the devolution jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

The Supreme Court is currently made up of 11 Justices, and one further Justice will be appointed in due course. The first Justices are the Law Lords who made up the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords as at July 2009. The Justices are housed in the Supreme Court and are disqualified from sitting or voting in the House of Lords. The current Justices are Lord Phillips, Lord Hope, Lord Saville of Newdigate, Lord Rodger, Lord Walker, Lady Hale, Lord Brown, Lord Mance, Lord Collins, Lord Kerr and Lord Clarke.

The Supreme Court sits in the former Middlesex Guildhall, on the western side of Parliament Square.

This location is seen as symbolic as the Court now sits alongside, but separate to, the executive and legislative arms of the state.