News feature

UK Supreme Court hosts special tenth birthday lecture series

The highest court in the land has just celebrated its tenth anniversary and plans to host a series of lectures to mark the occasion.

Lady Hale is President of the Supreme Court

First October 2009 was a defining moment in the constitutional history of the United Kingdom. Following the introduction of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, judicial authority was transferred away from the House of Lords to the newly created Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The judges moved across Parliament Square to the newly refurbished Middlesex Guildhall, and the building was oÿcially opened as the Supreme Court by Her Majesty the Queen on 16 October 2009.

Ten years later, the Supreme Court has heard a range of high-profile cases and given important judgments which have impacted on the lives of people across the country. It has grown in the public consciousness and is now fully established as one of the cornerstones of the British constitution.

UKSC lecture series: the details

Lord Reed is Deputy President of the Supreme Court

As part of the Supreme Court’s tenth birthday celebrations, the Court will host a series of lectures. A judge from each of the four nations of the Supreme Court will reflect on the Court’s work over the last decade and the impact the Court has had on each jurisdiction.

19 November: Lord Reed, Deputy President of the Supreme Court, will begin the series with a lecture on ‘The Supreme Court and Scotland: The First Ten Years.’

26 November: Lord Lloyd-Jones will give a lecture entitled ‘Wales: Law in a Small Nation’.

4 December: Lord Kerr will talk about ‘The impact of the Supreme Court on the law of Northern Ireland’.

12 December: Lady Hale, President of the Supreme Court, will close the lecture series with her talk entitled ‘The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom – Lessons from our first Ten Years’.