No less than 12 judges were assembled in the Court of Appeal (five) and the Supreme Court (seven) to deal with the thorny questions raised in R v Horncastle [2009] UKSC 14. You do not get this array of legal talent without a reason.
No less than 12 judges were assembled in the Court of Appeal (five) and the Supreme Court (seven) to deal with the thorny questions raised in R v Horncastle [2009] UKSC 14. You do not get this array of legal talent without a reason. This case was hand-picked to influence the Grand Chamber of the European Court.
Lord Phillips gave the sole Supreme Court judgment. The substance of the case related to the hearsay rule in criminal cases but its real import lies in Lord Phillips’s coruscating attack on the technical competence of the European Court of Human Rights. He gave a bravura display of the forensic powers of a common law judge at the top of his game: the European Court, he argued, began a line of authority with a decision where it “gave no explanation”; had no requirement
