(789) HOPE/RODGER CHANGE OF MIND
Our London constitutional correspondent Tony Bradley has alerted Scots Law News to our missing a Christmas treat on 12 December 2007, when in Spiers v Ruddy [2007] UKPC D2, 12 December 2007 http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/2007/D2.html the Privy Council unanimously over-ruled its previous decision in a Scottish criminal/devolution issue case, HM Advocate v R 2003 SC (PC) 21, which had in the intervening period been sharply disagreed with by the House of Lords in an English criminal appeal, Attorney General’s Reference No 2 of 2001 [2004] 2 AC 72 (see previously No 292). The common factor in all three cases is the presence on the respective panels of Lords Hope and Rodger: part of the majority in R, a gallant minority dissenting against seven English colleagues in the Attorney General case, and part of a unanimous panel in Spiers, persuaded to change their minds by subsequent Strasbourg jurisprudence. As James Chalmers has remarked in his Criminal Letters blog for 17 December (http://criminalletters.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00Z&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00Z&max-results=27), “it is a reconciliation attempt which allows Lords Hope and Rodger to change their views with honour and without having to admit to any error at an earlier stage.” We mention the matter now simply to complete a previous story; for the substance, readers are referred to Criminal Letters.