Goodbye House of Lords, Hello Supreme Court.

It's now official. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will now have themselves a brand new Supreme Court.

On October 1, 2009, the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom will replace the House of Lords as the highest court of appeal for Great Britain and the 12 "Law Lords" will then become justices.

The new Supreme Court will hear appeals from the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, the Court of Justiciary and the Court of Sessions in Scotland and the Supreme Court of Judicature in Northern Ireland. The new high court will also hear appeals from the highest courts of 30 British possessions, such as Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands and even a few otherwise independent countries like Jamaica but unlike our Supreme Court, the new British Supreme Court will have no power of judicial review over statutes since Great Britain has no written constitution.

The mother country does one up her former colony on this side of the pond in one respect - all of the proceedings of the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom will be televised. I hope John Roberts and company are paying attention.