Supreme Court to hand down JFS ruling by Christmas

The Supreme Court's ruling in JFS, the case challenging the admissions procedure at one of Britain's oldest Jewish schools, should be delivered next week, Lord Hope has revealed in an exclusive interview with Solicitors Journal to be published tomorrow.

The question arose as Lord Hope was explaining the process justices of the Supreme Court usually follow when crafting judgments.

Unlike the Court of Appeal and other courts, he said, the Supreme Court had the "comparative luxury" of time and that at this level it was "more important to produce a judgment that we're all comfortable with rather than feel we're cutting corners in order to meet deadlines".

But Lord Hope, who was made a Knight of the Order of the Thistle last week, said there were circumstances where the court would strive to stick to a particular timescale.

JFS was one such case, where the school indicated it would be useful to know the outcome before 14 January, the date when it will start its next admissions round.

The case reached the House of Lords in July after the Court of Appeal found in R (E) v JFS [2009] EWCA Civ 626 that the school's admissions criteria breached race discrimination law.

The school, which is regularly oversubscribed, operates an admissions policy giving preference to applicants who are regarded as Jewish according to rules drawn up by the Office of the Chief Rabbi.

The child's mother had converted to Judaism with a liberal synagogue and was not recognised as 'Jewish' by the OCR. The boy, E, was therefore unable to secure a place at the school.

At first instance, Mr Justice Munby held that the criterion used was based on religion and was therefore lawful.

Reversing Munby J's ruling, Lord Justice Sedley said: 'Our essential difference with him is that what he characterised as religious grounds are, in our judgment, racial grounds notwithstanding their theological motivation.'