ABSTRACT
The UK Government’s choice of the Judicial Committee as the institutional arbiter of the devolution settlement rests upon the assumption that the committee’s role will merely be one of interpreting an ordinary statute. This will not be the case. Whatever the constitutional position, the devolution Acts will be perceived as more than merely ordinary statutes of the Westminster Parliament. The decisions of this institution are likely to be politically charged and its reasoning will be carefully scrutinised. Whatever the constitutional niceties, most cases that reach the Judicial Committee will be disputes between the devolved institutions. This will place the UK’s courts in a political spotlight that they are entirely unused to.
