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The Supreme Court will be officially opened by the Queen today. No official announcement about this has yet been made by the Supreme Court, although the engagement is on today’s “Court Circular” (Royal, not Supreme).
Last night the Queen hosted a reception at Buckingham Palace for the visiting Chief Justices (pictured right). Sharper eyed readers may be able to identify the Chief Justices of Canada, News Zealand and the United States in the picture. Life Magazine has a picture of the Queen being introduced by Lord Phillips to US Chief Justice John G Roberts.
The only way to work out which English judges will be attending the official ceremony is to work backwards from the Cause List at the Royal Courts of Justice (which is published daily on the helpful Court Service website). The Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls are not listed as sitting and will, presumably, be in attendance. The only mention of the ceremony on the list seems to be in relation to the “Senior Courts Costs Office” (formerly the “Supreme Court Costs Office” – although the website has not quite caught up) which lists a number of Costs Judges as attending the “Opening Ceremony of the UK Supreme Court”.
It is strange that, in this new era of transparency, there has been no official announcement of the details of the ceremony or of the list of who is attending.
The 10 Downing Street website reports that
The Prime Minister will attend the official opening of the Supreme Court by Her Majesty the Queen today.
Gordon Brown will then join Justice Secretary Jack Straw and the Archbishop of Canterbury for a tour of the new building.
Nick Clegg is also on his way as we see from this Tweet:
nick_clegg On my way to the state opening of the new UK Supreme Court at 10.30, find out more: http://bit.ly/3zjJad