Lord Speaker the bar, and finish by walking up the Temporal (opposition) side toward the Woolsack. The Mace is placed on the Woolsack, where the Lord Speaker sits after a bishop has led the House in prayers. When the Sovereign appoints Lords Commissioners to perform certain actions on his or her behalf (for example, to open or prorogue Parliament, or formally declare Royal Assent), the Lord Speaker is one of them. The other Lords Commissioners, by convention, are the Leader of the House (who has acted as the principal Commissioner since the Lord Chancellor's functions were transferred to the Lord Speaker), the
Judicial functions of the House of Lords continued to come before the House of Lords in a similar manner. An Appellate Committee, normally consisting of five Lords of Appeal in Ordinary or Lords of Appeal, heard the actual appeals. The minimum number of Law Lords that could form a Committee was four. Seven Lords could sit in particularly important cases. On 4 October 2004 a Committee of nine Lords, including both the Senior Law Lord Lord Bingham of Cornhill and Second Senior Law Lord Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, was convened to hear challenges to the indefinite detention of suspects under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001,