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14 January 2010 / Brice Dickson
Issue: 7400 / Categories: Features , Profession
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Year end

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Brice Dickson runs through the UK’s top court in 2009

The past year witnessed the demise of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords and the birth of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

A day before its final sitting (to hear an interlocutory matter) the House issued judgments in seven cases, including R (Purdy) v DPP [2008] UKHL 45, where the DPP was ordered to promulgate a policy identifying the circumstances he would take into account when exercising his discretion to prosecute people for aiding and abetting suicide.

To the 45 decisions by the House can be added the 17 by the new Supreme Court, 11 of which related to matters argued within the House. The annual total of 62 top court decisions compares with the figure of 74 for 2008 and 58 for 2007.

The 62 decisions covered 79 appeals. All but six of these were from courts in England and Wales (even though one involved the constitution of Sark in the Channel Islands: R (Barclay) v Secretary of State for

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A seemingly dry procedural update may prove potent. In his latest 'Civil way' column for NLJ this week, Stephen Gold explains that new CPR 31.12A—part of the 193rd update—fills a ‘lacuna’ exposed in McLaren Indy v Alpa Racing
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The long-running Mazur saga edged towards its finale as the Court of Appeal heard arguments on whether non-solicitors can ‘conduct litigation’. Writing in NLJ this week, Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School reports from a packed courtroom where 16 wigs watched Nick Bacon KC argue that Mr Justice Sheldon had failed to distinguish between ‘tasks and responsibilities’
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The Court of Appeal has slammed the brakes on claimants trying to swap defendants after limitation has expired. In Adcamp LLP v Office Properties and BDB Pitmans v Lee [2026] EWCA Civ 50, it overturned High Court rulings that had allowed substitutions under s 35(6)(b) of the Limitation Act 1980, reports Sarah Crowther of DAC Beachcroft in this week's NLJ

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As AI-generated ‘deepfake’ images proliferate, the law may already have the tools to respond. In NLJ this week, Jon Belcher of Excello Law argues that such images amount to personal data processing under UK GDPR
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