Hugh Tomlinson QC & Oliver Gayner assess the Supreme Court’s Hilary Term
In Hilary Term 2010, the Supreme Court heard fourteen appeals and gave fourteen judgments. But the biggest news story concerned events—or rather non-events—outside the court room. The Supreme Court began and ended its second term of operation with eleven justices. The mysterious “twelfth justice”, who originally appeared on the court’s lists as “Justice X” failed to appear, being replaced at the last minute in each of the cases. It was not until a week before the end of term, on 23 March, that Downing Street announced the appointment of Sir John Dyson as “Justice 12”. This announcement came exactly eight months after the announcement that Lord Neuberger was to be appointed as Master of the rolls.
There has been a good deal of speculation as to why the process took so long, and what was going on behind the scenes. Attempts have been made to identify all kinds of skulduggery and back stairs jockeying for position. None of these have been sourced and we suspect that they contain a good
