Lesson video

Hello, I'm Mrs. Haynes.

And today I'm going to be teaching you some citizenship.

Well, let's just have a look at that starter slide together, okay? So you can see here that, the top question there is something that I've been looking at over a series of lessons, okay? "What is the nature of the British constitution?" That's our kind of overarching question.

And then in today's lesson, which is the last session of the series of lessons I've been looking at, we're doing, "What does the Supreme Court do?" So it might be a good idea, I'm assuming you got something to write with and some paper.

Might be a good idea if you just pause the screen now and perhaps make a note of those questions that we'll be looking at today, okay? All right.

And while I'm talking about equipment, as well as some who write with and something to write on, I would recommend today that you have a ruler with you.

So if you don't have one of those, just pause the video now and go and grab one.

If you have got one with you, then that's absolutely great.

We'll just move on.

Right.

So just going to give you an idea of the kind of things that we're going to look at today in our lesson, okay? So our lesson is going to have four different sections in order to consider the role of the Supreme Court.

So we're going to start with a brief explanation of the position of the Supreme Court in relation to the UK Court System.

And then number two is an introduction to the Supreme Court.

Just looking at it a bit closer.

And then number three, a more in-depth exploration of the cases dealt with by the Supreme Court.

And then, finally, number four, a comparison with the US, the American Supreme Court.

Okay, hope you're going to find this interesting.

Let's get going.

So the first one is a brief explanation of the position of the Supreme Court.

Now, this is where you're going to use that ruler.

Okay, so I've drawn here a little diagram, which shows whereabouts the Supreme Court would be positioned if you were trying to identify how it relates to the other courts, okay? So it might be a good idea if you pause the video in order to make a copy of that diagram.

Okay, so pause the lesson now.

Right, so I'm just going to read through what we've got there.

And you can double check that yours is the same.

So at the bottom, we've got on the left-hand side, the County and Family Court, and on the right hand side, we've got the Magistrate's Court.

And you'll see that a bit further up on your diagram as well, you should have civil law on the left and criminal law on the right.

Do you make sure those are there, 'cause without those the diagram doesn't make quite as much sense, okay? And then we've got arrows going up, High Court on the left, Crown Court on the right.

And then over both of them, the Court of Appeal.

And then over the top of that, again, the Supreme Court.

And then you'll just see, that underneath where it says the Supreme Court, underneath that it says civil cases in all of the UK, criminal cases in all of the UK except Scotland.

Okay, so if you didn't put that on your diagram, it is worth just pausing and making sure that that's there, okay? So that's an interesting sort of clarification there.

All right, so that shows whereabouts it is positioned.

Let's move on.

Though perhaps we ought to have an idea of how we've ended up with that sort of diagram there, how we've ended up with that Supreme Court being the special court over the top of the other courts.

So what I've got here is a little timeline showing the development, the movement of legal power from the House of Lords to the Supreme Court, okay? So I'm just going to read it through, and then, afterwards, perhaps you could pause and make a note of it for us.

So 1399, going back a bit there, the House of Commons stopped hearing petitions from citizens who wanted judgements from lower courts to be reversed or appealed.

That's the word that you'll hear quite a bit today, appealed, so reversed.

This became the role of the House of Commons alone.

Okay, so the House of Commons had a sort of a judicial role there.

Then in 2005.

So I've jumped quite a bit forwards in history there, the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 ends the Lord Chancellor's combined role as head of the judiciary, a member of the executive in the Cabinet, as the Minister for Justice, and Speaker of the House of Lords.

That was quite a big job there.

Now, before I move on to that last one, I'm just going to tell you a bit more about that role, Lord Chancellor.

The role still exists today, but as the separation of powers, which I covered in my lesson number five in this series, is very important.

It was recognised in 2005 that the Lord Chancellor, being both in the cabinet and having all the overall responsibility for the appointment of high-level judges in England and Wales was not ideal.

The relationship between the judiciary and politics was just too close there, okay? And the boundaries could become blurred within that role.

So actually, today, we do have a Lord Chancellor who's in the Cabinet.

They can be either from the House of Lords or the House of Commons, and actually their sort of job title is effectively the same as the Secretary of State for Justice.

And in July, 2020, the role is taken by the Right Honourable Robert Buckland QC, who, obviously, with that title, has a legal background, but not all recent Lord Chancellors have been lawyers, okay? So just a little bit more background on that particular role.

2009, the one at the bottom there, the House of Lords' judicial functions or legal function is completely transferred to the new UK Supreme Court, okay? So that's the movement from the House of Lords to the Supreme Court of that particular element, that particular role.

All right, okay.

So now I'm just going to do a brief introduction for you to the actual Supreme Court.

Right, so, I would like you to make some nice clear notes on the next five slides in preparation to complete a task at the end of it.

So remember that you've got complete authority over when you pause.

Anything you see that you want to make some notes on, you can just pause the sides and then start me up again.

Okay? All right.

So here we are.

There's an image there of the Supreme Court.

I'm just going to read it through with you as well.

"The Supreme Court is in Westminster on Parliament Square.

It is directly opposite from the Houses of Parliament in London.

Now, under normal circumstances, as with most courts, the public can enter to have a look at the court and the proceedings free of charge.

Some courts have a minimum age limit of around 14, but there is no minimum age limit at the Supreme Court." Okay, so you can go and visit.

The Supreme Court has three courtrooms. Court 1 and 2 are used for most of the Supreme Court cases.

And that's an image there that you can see of Court 1, which is probably the biggest of them.

They are designed to have an atmosphere of a learned seminar, rather than an adversarial one, which sort of means pitting one against the other type feeling.

So you can see it's quite a different sort of setup there, isn't it? And has that kind of adversarial.

Sorry, it has a learned seminar environment in the court rather than an adversarial one, okay? So quite nice, quite different, perhaps, to some of the courts you might've seen if you've been to any.

Now, the Library, that's the picture of the Library there, it's sort of in the middle of the slide, is not open to the public, because that is where the Supreme Court judges, who are called Justices, and their assistants can quietly study.

And there are 12 Justices for the UK Supreme Court.

And also on that slide, top right, you've got an image of the sort of reception area there that you'd go in and head through security and things.

And then down beneath that, there's an image of Court 2.

Just thought you might like to see that.

You might like to know as well, actually, that on the bottom floor.

I was going to say basement, but it's not really the basement, on the bottom floor, the lower floor, there's a really interesting exhibition that you can go and have a look at as well.

It's free of charge.

So it's really worth a visit if you do go to London and it's open.

Right, so Court 3 houses the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which tends to be referred to as that, the JCPC.

And it hears cases relating to the Commonwealth, British overseas territories, and Crown dependencies.

So the Supreme Court is the final court of appeal for countries, such as The Bahamas, Mauritius, Gibraltar, Falkland Islands and Guernsey.

And there's an image there of Court 3.

All right, the emblem.

The emblem of the Supreme Court was designed by Yvonne Holton, and represents the four jurisdictions within the UK.

The design can be found all around the courts, including on the carpet.

It's really lovely all around the courts, if you ever get to go.

The Royal Crown is then on top of the emblem as the monarch is the source of the Supreme Court's authority.

Okay, and there's a little image there of the emblem for you.

And I've just tried to show you a clip of the carpet with the art as well.

Quite hard to see, isn't it? So definitely have to go.

Right, are you ready for task to see if you've been paying close attention? Hopefully you've paused any of those as I've been going through them to make any notes that you wanted to.

So let's have a look at little activity now.

Okay, it's going to be a fill in the gaps one.

An introduction to the Supreme Court.

So you can see there there's a piece of text, and there are some gaps.

And then the words below need to go into those gaps, okay? I have been a bit mean, because there is one word down the bottom there that isn't in any of those gaps.

It's a bit of a red herring.

Okay, so you need to identify which one you're not going to use of those ones at the bottom.

I might just read it out to you.

"The Supreme Court is based in and is to visit.

It has courtrooms and there are justices.

Most areas are open to the public, except the, and the emblem can be seen all around the court building, including on the, Court 3 houses the.

Okay, so have a go at completing that now.

Pause the lesson now.

Right, there we are with the answers.

You got all of those, didn't you? Well-done, and government, the word down the bottom there, government wasn't used by me.

So well done if you got all of those.

If you didn't, if you've got any of those wrong, or you just need to quickly jot one in, then just make sure you pause the video at this point as well.

I'm going to move on.

There is a really lovely video clip that's been done by Stacy Dooley, and it introduces the Supreme Court.

It's just a nice complimentary video to the kind of things I'm going to be covering with you.

Hello, I'm Stacey Dooley and I'm here today in London to find out a bit about the highest court in the land.

It's called the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

Well, here we are.

The building has been there for 100 years, but the court itself is actually quite new.

The guys who are now sat in there used to be based over the other side of Parliament Square in the House of Lords.

The Supreme Court is the highest court of appeal for all civil cases in the whole of the UK and for all criminal ones, except for those in Scotland.

It used to sit in the Houses of Parliament, and the country's top judges, known as Law Lords, not only presided over cases there, but were also members of the House of Lords.

But why was it necessary to move everything over here? To find out why, I'm going to ask one of the Supreme Court Justices, Lord Kerr.

So why was the Supreme Court established as a separate entity? A fundamental principle of separation of powers is a cornerstone of our constitution.

And what that means is that there should be a division of responsibility between those who make the laws and those who are responsible, like me, for adjudicating on difficult points of law.

And the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005, by establishing the Supreme Court, made that expressly clear.

The old Middlesex Guildhall building was chosen for the new site, and eventually the new Supreme Court of the UK opened in October, 2009.

As a result, Law Lords became Supreme Court Justices.

And I will do right all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm.

When the Law Lords sat House of Lords, it wasn't very accessible to the public.

It was pretty difficult to help people get their heads around what actually went on there.

And as a result, very few people ever sat in the public galleries.

I wonder if things have changed with the move here.

Working in the House of Lords was super in many ways, but here the working conditions are much better.

We have much more space for our staff, perhaps more importantly, even than that, is that we're much more accessible to the public.

We have lots of visitors.

We have a very good Exhibition Centre.

We have extraordinarily good reception staff.

They explain to their visitors what's happening in the court that day.

They conduct tours.

And generally, we find we're a very, very popular tourist attraction.

I don't know what I expected before I came here.

Probably that it was all going to feel a bit unfriendly and imposing, but being here, you really don't get that feeling at all.

What you do notice though is that the courts here don't look anything like the courts were used to seeing on the tele.

So how does it all work here? For case to be heard here, it needs to have gone through a whole loads of different stages before it reaches the Supreme Court.

A typical civil or criminal case in England or Wales might go through three other courts before it reaches the Supreme Court.

A case from Northern Ireland will go through different stages within their legal system, as well cases from Scotland.

Although criminal cases from Scotland can only reach this court in certain circumstances.

The High Court of Justiciary is usually Scotland's highest for criminal matters.

The judges here also serve as the highest court of appeal for a whole load of other countries in the Commonwealth and for British overseas territories, when they sit at something called the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

This used to be something the Law Lords did as well as sitting in the House of Lords, and it used to meet at Downing Street.

So when the Supreme Court was set up here, it made sense to bring the Judicial Committee over, so they could work alongside it.

And then now based here in Courtroom 3.

Only certain cases make it as far as the Supreme Court.

To do so, they must address a wider issue of importance to society.

This can be clearly seen in some of the most high profile cases to find their way to the House of Lords, or more recently to the Supreme Court.

I've come to meet Lady Hale, another of the Supreme Court Justices, and the first woman to be appointed to the role, to find out a bit more about how the court works.

Well, we're an appeal court.

That means that we don't hear the witnesses.

We don't decide who's telling the truth.

We don't decide what the facts are.

The parties come to us with a set of facts and they ask us what the law is.

We only choose to have the cases which involve general points of law, which are important to a large number of the population.

For example, we were hearing a case which is all about what responsibilities the Ministry of Defence owes to the soldiers fighting in Iraq for the equipment that they sent them out to fight with.

What could be more important than that? And why are these points of law so, so important? Well, once we have decided what the law is, then everybody else has to follow it.

So the case about the army, it comes up to us.

We decide what the responsibilities of the government, if any, are, it then goes back to the trial judge, who will apply what we have said when he comes to decide the case, but not only that case.

Every other case that raises the same point, the judges in the courts below us have to do what we have said the law is.

It's called the Doctrine of Precedent.

I wonder if how the Supreme Court works affects the layout of the courtrooms, which is very different from what you might expect them to.

You'll see there isn't a witness box.

There isn't a jury box.

There isn't even a press box, because anybody can come in and sit at the back and listen to what we're doing.

We're all around a table.

So the Justices are in a curve on one side and the barristers and the other lawyers and the parties they represent in a curve on the other side.

And we try and make it feel like a general discussion of these very important issues.

Before we finish, I also want to ask Lady Hale why there aren't more women justices.

Why there aren't more women is something of a mystery, but there aren't a lot of women High Court judges and Court of Appeal judges.

And that's partly because there aren't a lot of women at the top of the legal profession who are thought to be eligible to become judges.

And do you hope that changes? Can you see more women in the future? You bet I hope it changes.

Man, me too! Now, it's very well talking to the Justices, but what you've got to try and remember is that they are at the absolute top of their profession, and it could take someone like you or I up to half a lifetime to reach that level.

Which makes me wonder, is there a quicker way to get to work here? I've come to meet some people who should be able to tell me.

Okay, so you guys, your professional title is a judicial assistant.

Can you tell me a bit about what that involves? The main thing we do is we sit in court and we listen to a lot of argument every day.

We research for our Justices, and we discuss cases with them.

And another thing we do is we summarise cases and put them into forms, so the public can see what's going on when they come to court.

So do you guys work directly for the Justices? There's eight judicial assistants and we're spread amongst 12 Justices, who either work for one or two justices.

It's a great learning experience for us.

The justice is a very generous with their time explaining things to us.

They are 12 of the best legal minds in the country, which could be daunting, but also it's a fantastic opportunity to learn from people who are at the top of the profession that you aspire to reach.

You know what? I think being a judicial assistant sounds great.

It really is so, so interesting what these guys do.

It's been really fascinating having spent time here today, and I think it's normal to feel a bit overwhelmed initially, but once you find yourself here, the building itself is beautiful.

The people are really, very friendly, and it's just a lovely atmosphere all round.

I have had a really great time today on my visit.

And of course, you yourself can come and check it out.

You can either book yourself in on one of the tours, or you can just pop down and come and sit in and listen to one of the cases.

Our next question or our next topic, a more in-depth explanation of the cases, sorry, exploration of the cases dealt with by the Supreme Court.

Now, a nice quote for you.

I do love a good quote.

This is a good quote.

"Law is good and good law is good order." Now that's written by the ancient philosopher Aristotle, and it's actually engraved in the Library of the Supreme Court.

And I just thought that was such a good quote to kind of sum up the work that's carried on by the Supreme Court.

Fundamentally, they aim to clarify points of law, so they can ensure that the law is being delivered consistently across all of the jurisdictions.

So they're making sure that the laws that are being applied are, as Aristotle would call them, "Good laws." That's the kind of role of the Supreme Court, okay? You might want to pause and make a note of that quote if you're interested in it.

Something else that relates to the Supreme Court, before we look at some of the cases, is to understand this.

It's called the Doctrine of Precedent.

Now, please note that I'm not saying president, as in President Trump, okay? What we're dealing here is a different word and different spelling.

So if you're making a note of this, please be careful that you spell it correctly.

And simply, this requires lower courts to take account of and follow the decisions made by the higher courts, where the material facts are the same, okay? So the high courts, such as the Supreme Court, will set a precedent.

And that means that they are stating how the law has to be applied in all future cases in lower courts as well, okay? This is effectively the role of the Supreme Court, but as it is the highest court in the UK, it only considers cases that will have an impact on a large number of people, on large numbers of people.

All right, so if I were you, I'd make a note of both of those bullet points, so that you've got a good collection of notes from the end of today's lesson.

So I'm going to move on.

So now we're just going to have a look at some recent cases that have been in the Supreme Court, okay? So what I've done here is I've put the details of the cases in the coloured boxes at the top, and then underneath I've just kind of made it clear who the case is kind of between, all right? So let's take that top one there on the left.

"Grounds to appeal against deportation based on human rights." That's something that the Supreme Court has been hearing about and deciding upon.

And that's an individual bringing their case against the Home Office.

And then across from that, on the other side, in the pink, so top right box, we've got, "Grounds to appeal against loss of inheritance based on a person's mental state." That's another case that they're listening to and kind of deciding upon, what the grounds for appeal would be.

And this is an individual who is bringing the case against the NHS, National Health Service.

So you see, can't you, how these are quite high level cases of kind of people who are, you know, being challenged in these court cases, in these hearings, The Home Office and the NHS.

In the bottom row there, slightly different one in the bottom left, this is how to value, so their ruling on how to value non-negotiable gambling chips.

Now I'm not even really too sure what a non-negotiable gambling chip is, but the Supreme Court are having to get their head around that, and being able to give a ruling on that.

And that's been brought by the London Clubs Management Limited, that's a company, against HMRC.

So her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. All branches of government here.

And then, bottom, on the right we've got a different one here.

Not against a branch of government, but it would have implications for large number of people once that ruling would be given by the Supreme Court.

And the case is about whether the care home workers required to sleep in are entitled to a wage during that time.

So you can see how that could be quite interesting.

It might affect quite a lot of different care workers.

Okay, now, you might, at this point, want to make a note of a couple of those, just as examples.

I think I would, if I was trying to find out about this.

It would be quite nice to have a couple of those examples.

So pause if you want to do that and I'll be move on.

Okey-doke, just something else I thought I'd let you know about.

This is the Supreme Court and the government.

So in September, 2019, the Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether Prime Minister Boris Johnson has acted unlawfully in suspending Parliament for five weeks.

Justices agreed unanimously that this was unlawful.

Supreme Court President, Lady Hale said, "The decision was a unlawful, because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions." NPs returned to the House of Parliament.

So that's just showing you that the Supreme Court get involved in very high level dealings, okay? Right, so let's just do a task on this.

Pause the video to complete this task.

Why is the work of the Supreme Court of such importance? See if you can think of two or three different things that you'd say in answer for that.

So I'd like you to pause there now and see if you can do that.

So pause the lesson now.

All right, here are some answers that I thought of, and you've probably got something very similar, I would think.

So the reason why it's so important is it because it sets those precedents.

It looks at clarifying the law on issues that impact lots of people.

And it will give rulings, judgements, on the highest level of political and business-related issues, okay? So three kind of important things that show that that Supreme Court is very significant.

So if you didn't have those answers and you had something else, I'm sure that those answers were very good as well, but you might want to just add my answers too to your list.

If you've got something very similar to me, then that's great.

Well done, you guys.

So just pause for a second if you need to add anything from that one.

So now we're going to do a comparison with the US Supreme Court, the American Supreme Court, okay? I thought we'd play a game of spot the difference.

So the green boxes, the larger boxes through the middle there, hold the information about the US Supreme Court, and then beneath it, in the black writing, and beneath it, each one, is information about the UK Supreme Court.

Okay, so I'm just going to read them through for you.

So we'll start on the left-hand side.

We'll start with the US Supreme Court first in the green box.

Justices are appointed by the President and are often labelled as politically conservative or liberal.

And underneath, the UK Supreme Court.

Justices are appointed by an independent selection committee.

They cannot belong to a political party, okay? So see if you can spot the difference there.

I'm sure you have.

Middle one, in the green box, the US system.

There are nine Justices, and they do not have to have had experience as trial judges.

And then underneath, there are 12 Justices.

This is the UK one, 12 Justices.

And they have been High Court judges or have 15 years minimum of experience.

On the right hand side, the American system, Justices are appointed for life.

In other words, until they die, they're in post, if they choose to be.

And then underneath that, since 1995, Justices can serve until they are 70 years old.

So that's the UK one.

So there's quite a few differences there, aren't there? I wonder if that's making you think about that.

I wonder what you think about that.

I think one thing I would say is that the Supreme Court in the US is a very old establishment, and that we've been, quite recently, I suppose, reforming our system.

Haven't we? So perhaps some of the things I've written across the bottom weren't always the case, but have been part of recent reforms. Right, let's do a little task on this.

Pause the video to complete your task.

Why do you think the UK Supreme Court has chosen these differences to the US Supreme Court? So I want you to see if you can think of some reasons, maybe three, perhaps four reasons why you think the UK Supreme Court is doing things a bit differently to the US one.

Okay, see if you can have a go at that then.

So pause the lesson now.

Right, let's have a look at some answers here to that question.

So I thought these kinds of things were the things you probably would've said.

To uphold the principle of the separation of powers.

Very important to us.

As I said, that was our last lesson.

The second one: to prevent political bias in any judgments.

I'm sure you got at one.

To guarantee expertise and breadth of experience, the fact that there was more Justices in the UK system.

And then, finally, to ensure modern viewpoints are held.

If you've got more of them and they're retiring earlier as a set date, then you're going to have a bigger turn around of Justices.

And I thought that might keep kind of ideas fresh, perhaps.

So again, if you want to pause here and add any of those in onto your answer, you're very welcome.

Right, let's have a look at all the different things that we've done today.

So our lesson has had four different sections in order to consider the role of the Supreme Court.

We've had a brief explanation of the position of the Supreme Court.

And we drew the diagram.

We've an introduction to the Supreme Court, found out all about the different rooms. We've had a closer look, a more in-depth exploration of the kind of cases that were dealt by the Supreme Court.

And then, finally, we've compared it to the US Supreme Court.

So just stop now.

You've got to have a go at my exit sequence.

See if you can get a five out of five.

I'm sure you can.

Well done for today.

It's been really lovely having you with me.

Hope you have a nice rest of your day.

Bye for now.