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A new Supreme Court was not part of Labour’s initial constitutional reform agenda, but became more likely as a result of the combined impact of the Human Rights Act, devolution and Lords reform. Andrew le Sueur and Richard Cornes set out the options for a new Supreme Court in What do the Top Courts do? (2000) and The Future of the UK’s Highest Courts (2001), and we invited the senior law lord Lord Bingham to respond in a public lecture when he came out in favour of a new Supreme Court in 2002. The Lord Chancellor Lord Irvine remained unpersuaded, but he was removed in 2003 and the new Supreme Court was created by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.
Projects associated with the Supreme Court:
Publications
The main outputs from the projects:
- Andrew le Sueur and Richard Cornes: What do the Top Courts do? (Constitution Unit, 2000)
- Andrew le Sueur: What is the Future for the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council? (Constitution Unit, 2001)
- Andrew le Sueur and Richard Cornes: The Future of the United Kingdom's Highest Courts (Constitution Unit, 2001)
- Lord Bingham of Cornhill: A New Supreme Court for the United Kingdom, Constitution Unit Annual Lecture (Constitution Unit, 2002)
- Andrew le Sueur (ed): Building the UK's new Supreme Court: National and Comparative Perspectives (Oxford University Press, 2004)
- Andrew le Sueur, 'Developing mechanisms for judicial accountability in the UK' in Legal Studies 24:1 at pp 73-98 (March 2004)
