The UK government recently said that the Law Lords who sit in the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, will be replace by a Supreme Court based on the American Model.
Would members care to comment on the following:
1. The effectiveness of the U/S Supreme court?
2. Does it act as an effective check on the excecutive?
3. Does it up hold the rights of citizens?
4. Has it become a politically controlled bench with appointments being made by the U/S President?
5.Are U/S supreme court judges influnced by their political views and is this reflected in adjudications by the court?

'Law Lord' is a misleading title; these people are not merely lords, peers of the Realm, who happen to decide the cases of the greatest importance where there is a point of law involved. They are senior judges who formerly sat in the High Court in England or Scotland and who, as a result of their preeminence are appointed lords to sit in this capacity, though they can in theory be appointed from senior academic lawyers who are suitably qualified professionally.

None of our judges, at any level, are elected in the way that US judges are. The only one of the law lords who is seen as political is the Lord Chancellor,the head of the judiciary, who is chosen by the Prime Minister and is a member of the cabinet.It is true that the Lord Chancellor's department does, in effect, appoint judges but the idea that this is done on the basis of political considerations would be laughable. The key word is 'department'. In other words the job is done by civil servants according to long established practices.

Few Lord Chancellors ever sit in the deciding of cases; on the rare occasions when they exercise this right it is , by convention, not in any case which directly or indirectly concerns the government.

Mr Blair is to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor. Some people fear that this abolition of an office which is a curious historical accident (early holders of the office were all clergymen, not lawyers,and it is odd indeed to have a member of the Cabinet entitled to sit as a judge) is in reality an excuse for the government to have more political control over who is a judge.

It is easy to see that a committee with members nominated by the government and deputed to choose who are to be senior judges may do so in accordance with political dogma.

Mr Blair's own choice of Lord Chancellor was the man who had been head of his old pupillage chambers ( the group of barristers in whose offices he was an apprentice); perhaps he could not think of any other Labour Party supporting lawyer whom he thought he could trust ! ( His choice turned out to be arrogant, independent and interfering individual, we are led to believe by the press; it may be no surprise that he is to go and some other system introduced)