Lord Reed Appointed New President of the Supreme Court
11th Jan 2020 was a bitter sweet day in the Supreme Court. The day before saw the first female president of the Supreme Court bid an emotional farewell to the court. Lady Hale celebrated her 75th birthday on the 31st January 2020 and the law states that any female appointed judge sworn in before 1995 must retire at 75.
Lady Hale has been at the front of the two biggest political cases to hit the Supreme Court in history. Gina Miller and Brexit and Boris Johnson’s effort to prolong Parliament. In her retirement Lady Hale hopes to write a memoir of her time at the bench.
However Lady Hale know she is leaving the highest court in the UK in good hands. 11th Jan saw Lord Reed Sworn in as the new President of the Supreme Court. Lord Reed has been Lady Hale’s deputy since June 2018.
We wish Lady Hale a Happy Retirement!
About Lord Reed
Lord Reed, who is 63 at time of appointment, studied at Edinburgh University before going on and graduating from Oxford University. He became the youngest judge at the age og 42 in 1998 and has had an eventful career in many different sectors including civil and criminal and in different continents including Europe and Asia.
Lord Reed sat on the board of appeal for the European court of Human Rights. One of the cases involved that of ten year old Robert Thompson and Jon Venables who had been accused of murdering James Bulger. The case was ruled to be have been unfair as the accused had been treated as adults rather than juveniles.
Lord Reed was appointed a justice of the Supreme Court in 2010 and was one of three Supreme Court judges who dissented against the Brexit court case in which it was ruled that Theresa May must seek Parliaments approval before she could trigger article 50.
Lord Reed will be the first Scottish president of the Supreme Court.
Stepping into his shoes as deputy is Lord Hodge who was appointed as a Justice of the Supreme Court in October 2013.
Filling the gap Lady Hale leaves behind is Sir Nicholas Hamblen. He studied at Harvard under a Kennedy Scholarship and was called to the bar in 1981.
As well as appointing Lord Justice Hamblen, Her Majesty the Queen has also appointed two other Lord Justices. Lord Justice Leggatt will take up his seat on 21st April 2020 and Lord Justice Burrows will take up his seat on the 2nd June 2020.
On asking his fellow colleagues of Lord Reed’s qualities, Lord Hope said, “The new president was a quiet and self-contained person. I think he will be the first to recognise that Brenda Hale’s presidency is a very hard act to follow”. [1]
Written By: Victoria-Jayne Scholes
Image credit: BBC
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