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22 January 2009 / Brice Dickson
Issue: 7353 / Categories: Features , Legal services , Profession
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End of term report

Brice Dickson reviews the performance of the law lords in 2008

The year just ended was the last in which the House of Lords will constitute the highest court in the . The biggest legal event of 2009 will be the transfer of the jurisdiction to the UK Supreme Court in October. Even though lawyers and judges tend to think in terms of legal rather than calendar years, a review of the output of their Lordships during the past 12 months will help to provide some baseline figures for future comparisons between the two institutions.

 

Decisions

In 2008 the House of Lords issued 74 decisions ([2008] UKHL 1 to [2008] UKHL 74), 16 more than in 2006 and exactly equal to the record annual number set in 2005. One of the decisions (R v GG plc [2008] UKHL 17) was subjected to reporting restrictions and is not available for analysis.

The 73 published decisions related, in all, to 91 appeals, as in 10 cases

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NEWS
Lawyers have welcomed the Lord Chancellor’s reverse-ferret on jury reforms, but expressed ‘serious concerns’ about the decision to exclude fraud trials
From ‘rats in the robing room’ to ‘overworked’ judges and a shortage of court staff, barristers have aired their concerns about the state of the justice system
The use of agentic artificial intelligence (AI) poses ‘significant risks’ across the justice system, public services and government, and current regulation is ‘poorly suited’ to control it, experts have warned
The solicitors’ regulator has paused controversial plans to exclude owner-managers from compliance officer roles
The government has launched a £16m legal support grant to support 48 frontline legal advice organisations supporting people facing eviction, problem debt, benefit disputes and family breakdown
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