FIVE Supreme Court justices will hear arguments over two days on whether the Scottish Parliament has the power to hold an independence referendum.
This is the standard number, although it is possible for more judges to sit on cases deemed to be of “high constitutional” or “great public” importance.
Here we take a look a closer look at who will be making the decision:
Lord Reed
The only Scottish judge on the panel, Lord Robert Reed was appointed as President of the Supreme Court in January 2020.
He was born in Edinburgh in 1956 and studied law at Edinburgh University and then Oxford.
In 1988, he became Scotland’s youngest ever judge at the age of 42 and he is the first Scottish President of the Supreme Court.
One of the most high-profile constitutional cases he has been involved in is the ruling on the Brexit appeal court case of 2017 brought by Gina Miller.
The ruling by 11 justices ordered then Prime Minister Theresa May to seek the approval of Westminster before she could trigger Article 50 and start the process of leaving the European Union.
However Lord Reed was one of three judges who dissented with the majority, producing opinions in favour of the Government.
He concluded: “It is important for courts to understand that the legalisation of political issues is not always constitutionally appropriate, and may be fraught with risk, not least for the judiciary.”
Lord Lloyd-Jones
This year, David Lloyd Jones made history by returning to the Supreme Court in August this year after stepping down.
The native Welsh speaker was the first Welsh justice to join the court in 2017, but retired in January this year under legislation which enforced a mandatory retirement age of 70 for judicial office-holders.
However in March 2022, the rules were amended which allow judges to sit on the UK’s top court until they turn 75.
It meant he made history twice – by becoming the first judge to return under the new retirement age and the first to be appointed twice to the Supreme Court.
Lord Sales
Educated at both Cambridge and Oxford universities, Lord Philip Sales was appointed at a justice of the Supreme Court in 2019.
Before that, he was one of three judges involved in the high-profile Miller Article 50 case in 2016, which asked whether the power to start the process of leaving the EU lay with the Prime Minister or the UK Parliament.
The decision that approval was required from parliament sparked a major reaction, including the Daily Mail running an infamous front page which branded the judges as “enemies of the people”.
This prompted criticism from MPs and calls for the independence of the judiciary to be defended.
In 2016, Sales was one of three Court of Appeal judges who backed a bid by Labour’s ruling body to overturn a High Court decision allowing new party members to vote in the contest between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith for the party’s leadership.
Lord Stephens
Lord Ben Stephens, who has spent a large part of his career in Northern Ireland, became a justice of the Supreme Court in October 2020.
He was involved in the recent case in 2021, when the UK Government challenged whether the Scottish Parliament had powers to pass two key bills – one relating to the incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the other relating to local self-government, both of which had been passed unanimously by MSPs.
Along with Lord Reed, Lord Sales, Lord Lloyd-Jones and Lord Hodge, the ruling was given that certain provisions of the bills were outside the legislative competence of Holyrood.
After the decision, Deputy First Minister John Swinney said the UK Government had refused to expand the devolution settlement to allow for the bills to be covered and it showed Scotland was in a “ludicrous constitutional position”.
Lady Rose
The only female on the 12-strong panel of justices at the Supreme Court, Lady Vivien Rose was appointed in 2021.
With concerns over the diversity of the UK’s top court, three women judges were appointed in 2017 and 2018 – but all then retired.
Prominent female lawyers have commented that there are currently there are more men called David than there are women justices sitting on the Supreme Court panel.
Earlier this year, Dinah Rose QC (now KC), president of Magdalen College, Oxford, posted that “Davids now outnumber women 3:1” on the court.
Since the Supreme Court was founded in 2009, taking over from the House of Lords judicial committee, there have been 28 men and four women appointed.
Lady Rose is a former civil service lawyer who was educated at both Cambridge and Oxford universities.
