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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