
As the Supreme Court completes its first year of sittings this week, nobody is saying anything about the contribution to its jurisprudence by the third most senior member of the court, Lord Saville of Newdigate. That is because -- as far as I can see -- Lord Saville has not written a single judgment.
A search through the court's rulings reveals the occasional paragraph or two in which Lord Saville says whom he agrees with. But even in cases where Lord Saville has presided, the "judgment of the court" has been written by someone else.
Of course, I am happy to be corrected by anyone who has found a substantive judgment written by Lord Saville during the past year. And even though he now retires from the court, he may have written substantively in cases where judgment has yet to be delivered; he sat, for example, on one of the cases in which a ruling is to be delivered tomorrow.
Update, 28 July: Again, no judgment from Lord Saville today. Again, in the case where he presided, the most junior member of the court -- Sir John Dyson -- has written the court's judgment.
Second update: Talking of vacancies in the Supreme Court, I see that the Bar Council is holding an event in December called Improve Your Chances of Judicial Selection. The speaker is Jonathan Sumption QC.
Post your comment
Joshua Rozenberg is an independent legal commentator who presents Law in Action on BBC Radio 4.
- Grounds for Hope
- Is Islam a Peaceful Religion? Daniel Johnson at the Oxford Union
- Standpoint's Autumn Salons
- Win Tickets to the Inaugural Standpoint Salon
- Is Hunter's History Bunk?
- Lawson Collects on Climate Change Bet
- The Cabinet meeting that kept Salman Rushdie alive
- Friends of Russia or Friends of Putin?
- The Kremlin Plays Old Tricks With Pussy Riot
- A Pyrrhic Victory for Georgian Democracy
- Abandoned in Moscow
- Standpoint's New Facebook Page
- No need to pander to the Bear, Mr Obama
- Govemania
- Standpoint Recommends: The Tacitus Lecture 2012
- Goodbye, Vienna
- Friends Indeed — Daniel Johnson on Gertrude Himmelfarb
- New Culture Forum Lecture: Jeremy Hunt
- Kangaroo Courts Arrive Down Under
- The BBC's painful novelties
- Money can't buy you love - Nichi Hodgson
- World Youth Day Diary: Day Four
- World Youth Day Diary: Day Three
- World Youth Day Diary: Day Two
- World Youth Day Diary: Day One
- Breivik and Anti-Muslim Bigotry
- Who'd be a TLA?


















