UK Supreme Court

• Supreme court was established by the Constitutional reform act 2005 and didn't begin working until 2009, when it moved out of parliament into Guildhall. This was to end fusion of powers in the UK Judiciary
• Judges are appointed by an independent Judicial Appointments Commission and the judiciary is headed by the most senior member of the Supreme court. Known as the Lord Chief Justice, currently Robert Reed
• The creation of the Supreme Court can be seen as a challenge to parliamentary sovereignty as law lords were no longer the final court of appeal.
• The Supreme court can technically be abolished by parliament due to parliamentary sovereignty, different to US SC as they are constitutional. This would be very unlikely due to public backlash.
• The Supreme Court is the final court of appeal for criminal cases. It also hears cases of public and constitutional importance, such as the 2019 Prorogation of Parliament case deciding whether government acted ultra-vires.
• UK Supreme Court is made up by 12 Judges by an odd amount attend cases to have a verdict.
• Judges have to retire at 70 and then enter House Of Lords.
• Criticised for being highly unrepresentative in terms of race, class, education and age. Mostly 60+ Year old white men
• Judges are voted by and independent 5-member Selection Commission which is confirmed by Lord Chancellor, who can only reject nominations 3 times before they have to pick 1 out of the 3 giving less power to chancellor, then the Monarch approves.
• Judicial Neutrality is that judges will exercise their functions without being influenced by personal bias or political opinions.
• Judicial Neutrality is safeguarded as judges remain anonymous and rarely speak out in public. Judges also have to base each decision in law and provide a full explanation of how they reached it
• Judicial Neutrality is upheld as cases are televised on youtube making it difficult to hide bias and allowing the court to be transparent to the public
• Judges cannot sit cases that involve anyone they know personally
• Judicial neutrality can be questioned in relation to its composition as they are unrepresentative leading to limited perspectives and an inability to understand certain issues. For example, in Radmacher v Granatino 2010 there was only 1 female judge in the case involving prenuptial agreement and she disagreed with the majority as it would disadvantage women and parliament should have a verdict instead of a predominantly male court