The UK Supreme Court (UKSC) was established in 2009 under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. It replaced the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords as the highest court and brought about a clearer separation of powers between the legislature and the judiciary.
The UKSC is the final court of appeal for all UK civil cases and all criminal cases from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The court itself determines which cases it will hear and whether these cases raise a point of law of general public or constitutional importance. In 2019–20, it heard 81 appeals, which represents about a third of the applications it received. The Justices in the Supreme Court also hear appeals from certain overseas jurisdictions. In these cases, the Justices sit as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. They heard 45 appeals between 2019 and 2020.
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