5. From Appellate Committee to Supreme Court: A Narrative

This chapter attempts to chart the principal events leading up to the Government's decision on 12 June 2003 to announce that the judicial business of the House of Lords would be transferred to a supreme court, on to the enactment of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, and the first steps towards practical realisation of the new court. The policy to have a supreme court was, from the outset, inextricably linked - at least in the minds of officials and ministers - with a decision to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor (later revised, following parliamentary pressure in the House of Lords, to retaining a much-reformed post of Lord Chancellor). The chapter is a case study on the British constitution's 'flexible' character and the absence of strong normative controls of the constitutional reform process.