Five justices at the UK’s highest court will decide the fate of the Government’s flagship Rwanda deportation policy after considering legal arguments for a month over whether the plans are lawful or not.
Here we take a look at the all-male panel who will hand down their ruling.
Lord Reed – President of the Supreme Court
Lord Reed, 67, who has led the 12-justice court since January 2020, is expected to be the judge who delivers a summary of the Rwanda ruling at a hearing on Wednesday.
Over the course of more than a decade at the UK’s top court, Lord Reed has been involved in some of its biggest cases, including the challenges over the prorogation of Parliament in 2019 and holding a Scottish independence referendum last year.
He previously served as a judge in Scotland and is also a member of a panel of ad hoc judges of the European Court of Human Rights.
Lord Reed was educated at the universities of Edinburgh and Oxford before qualifying as an advocate in Scotland and a barrister in England and Wales.
He has previously challenged claims that judges were meddling in political decision-making in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that former prime minister Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament in 2019 was unlawful.
Lord Hodge – Deputy President of the Supreme Court
Lord Hodge, 70, was appointed deputy president of the UK’s top court in January 2020.
The Scot, who succeeded compatriot Lord Reed when he became president, has served on the court since October 2013.
The judge was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1983 and appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1996.
He has held a number of roles in Scotland, including the Scottish Judge in Exchequer Causes.
Lord Lloyd-Jones
Lord Lloyd-Jones, 71, is on his second stint as a Supreme Court justice having originally served between October 2017 and January 2022.
After retiring from the role, he returned in August 2022 after an increase in the mandatory retirement age for judges from 70 to 75.
He was born and brought up in Pontypridd, South Wales, where his father was a school teacher, and was the court’s first justice to come from Wales.
A Welsh speaker, he was appointed to the High Court in 2005, and acted as adviser to the court in the Pinochet litigation before the House of Lords.
He has also served as a Lord Justice of Appeal and as chairman of the Law Commission.
Lord Briggs
The Supreme Court’s most senior English member, Lord Briggs, 68, became a justice in October 2017.
He grew up around Portsmouth and Plymouth, following his naval officer father between ships, before spending his later childhood in West Sussex.
A keen sailor and the first lawyer in his family, he worked as a commercial lawyer before joining the High Court in 2006 where he oversaw the insolvency litigation following the collapse of the Lehman Brothers group from 2009 to 2013.
He joined the Court of Appeal in 2013 and was involved in civil justice reform, leading the Chancery Modernisation Review and Civil Courts Structure Review.
Lord Sales
Lord Sales, 61, was the youngest of the court’s justices when he was appointed in January 2019.
He worked as a barrister and QC before his appointment to the High Court in 2008.
He was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Guildford, before studying law at both Cambridge and Oxford universities.
He was vice-president of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, served as deputy chairman of the Boundary Commission for England and was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal.