Courts & the Legal System

The Unit has long forecast the need for a new Supreme Court, as a consequence of the combined pressures of the Human Rights Act, devolution and reform of the House of Lords. We conducted a research project on different models for a Supreme Court in the UK, led by Andrew le Sueur and Richard Cornes. Lord Bingham responded to the ideas in that project in his 2002 lecture. In 2003 the government announced the creation of a new Supreme Court, which was enacted in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.

Projects | Publications | Monitor Articles | Events

Research Projects

Past projects include:

• How the Law and Devolution Disputes Shape the Devolution Settlement (2001)
• Supreme or Constitutional Court: What do the Top Courts do? (1999)
• Judicial Assistance: The support needs of the Higher Courts (1999)

Publications

• All Constitution Unit publications: Courts and the Legal System
• 'The Judiciary' by Andrew le Sueur and Kate Malleson in Constitutional Futures Revisited (November 2008)

Monitor Articles

• Monitor 25 (December 2003) Constitutional Battles Ahead

Events

• Seminar: Finding tomorrow's judges: the work of the new Judicial Appointments Commission Lady Justice Heather Hallett and Ms Sara Nathan, Judicial Appointments Commission (October 2007)
• Seminar: The Languages of Constitutional Dialogue: Constitutional Realism about Judges and Politicians
  Professor Matthew Palmer, New Zealand Law Foundation International Research Fellow and Herbert Smith Visitor, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge (April 2007)
• Annual Lecture 2002: A New Supreme Court for the United Kingdom Lord Bingham of Cornhill

This page last modified 4 September, 2009 by v.spence@ucl.ac.uk

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