The Debbie Purdy judgement was significant not only in its content but also in its timing. It came as one of the final appeal hearings and judgments of the House of Lords on 30 July 2009. The judicial role of the House of Lords as the highest appeal court in the UK has ended. From 1 October 2009, the United Kingdom Supreme Court assumes jurisdiction on points of law for all civil law cases in the UK and all criminal cases in England and Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Law Lords of the House of Lords (as at July 2009), will be the first justices of the 12-member Supreme Court. The Court will be a statutory body in its own right, which will be headed by a Chief Executive. Middlesex Guildhall is the location for the Court and the Ministry of Justice claim that “locating the UK Supreme Court on Parliament Square, opposite the Houses of Parliament and alongside Westminster Abbey and the Treasury Building, will symbolise the Supreme Court as a cornerstone of our constitutional rights in this country”. Of particular significance is that, for the first time in its 1,000-year history, the judiciary is fully and officially independent of the government. The Law Lords, as members of the House of Lords, not only sat judicially, but were also able to become involved in the debate and subsequent enactment of Government legislation. Creating a new Supreme Court will mean that the most senior judges will be entirely separate from the Parliamentary process. The first justices of the 12-member Supreme Court are disqualified from sitting or voting in the House of Lords. When they retire from the Supreme Court they can return to the House of Lords as full Members but newly-appointed Justices of the Supreme Court will not have seats in the House of Lords.

The same can not be said about the role of the Attorney General. Plans to make this role independent of government have been abandoned by ministers despite efforts by constitutional reformers to depoliticise it. The vehicle for change was to have been the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, but when Jack Straw introduced it last month it was specifically excluded. In a written statement he said that “in the event, the significant, necessary reforms to the role of Attorney-General are being achieved without the need for legislation”, adding that “the government have concluded that it is not necessary to include legislative changes in respect of the Attorney-General”. This means that the Attorney General will retain the right to decide on prosecutions in important cases involving national security, as well as the power to challenge lenient sentences, and will not be required by statute to publish advice. She will retain her seat in the cabinet. This decision cost Gordon Brown his constitutional affairs adviser, Lord Lester, who resigned in frustration at the government’s failure to take a more radical stance on the independence of the Attorney General.