High Court Ruling
The High court has ruled that the government needs parliamentary approval to trigger Article 50 and withdraw from the European Union.
You can read the full judgement at
https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/r-miller-v-secretary-of-state-for-exiting-the-european-union/
and key extracts at Politics Home here.
This was the government's initial response:
You can read the full judgement at
https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/r-miller-v-secretary-of-state-for-exiting-the-european-union/
and key extracts at Politics Home here.
This was the government's initial response:
Comments
In other words, this is the high court saying "we are escalating this one to the Supreme Court" - so unlike the "legacy media" lets not blow this one out of proportion just yet. :)
If all goes the way of the high court postion then THA is closer than you ever could imagine.
The pound is up over 1% today, thanks to the Legacy media blowing all out of proportion, so there was some how an unexplained sudden increase in demand for pitchforks and piano wire.
AS explained in the post I have just made, although some MPs and peers would undoubtedly try to cause trouble, I think there is a good chance that they can get a bill to trigger Article 50 through parliament much faster than they could get a favourable ruling from the European Court of Justice.
MPs for constituencies which had voted Leave - which is a majority of them - would be putting up two fingers to the people who elected them if they tried to block article 50. The House of Lords could be more of a problem but given that holding a referendum and respecting the result were in the Conservative Manifesto, the Lords would be breaking the Salisbury Convention if they tried to stop Article 50.
I may be wrong, but I think the government's chances of getting a one-line bill through parliament to trigger Article 50 are better than even and much better than their chances of getting a helpful decision from the European Court of Justice.
Your senario I think is the second most likely. (that is supreme court rules against government, both HOC and HOL pass law to invoke art 50, art 50)
in the very unlikely event either or both houses vote no to art 50 then ECJ is a possibility, if they rule against then there is article 62 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) which would be the equivelent of revoking the ECJ leading to the chaos of "hard" brexit (I hate that term)
No matter how it goes the UK remaining in the EU is not a possibility, the decision on leaving has been made, this is just for the permission to formally inform the EU about it. Which is something the government is treaty bound to do.
This whole thing is really the courts telling the Executive to ask permission of the parliament so they may be allowed follow an act of parliament. (ECA)
The decision of whether or not to leave has been passed to the people to make (under an act of parliament) and the decision to leave was made, which under the referendum act the government must follow. The European communities act says the EU treaty's have to be followed (by act of parliament) and the treat's via article 50 say that if we decide to leave (which under article 50 we can) we just need to tell the EU formally about the decision 2 years before we do leave.
In short I think the most likely outcome is that the Supreme Court will rule in favour of the Government and against the decision of the High court.
He just puts it better than I did, link here
ho hum