United Kingdom supreme court has ruled that Prime Minister, Boris Johnson's five-week suspension of Parliament at the height of the Brexit was unlawful, and will have far-reaching constitutional implications.
The judgment from 11 justices on the UK’s highest court follows an emergency three-day hearing last week that exposed fundamental legal differences over-interpreting the country’s unwritten constitution. The decision was read out by Lady Hale, the president of the supreme court. The first legal question the judges had to resolve was whether the prime minister’s decision exploiting residual, royal prerogative powers was “justiciable” and could consequently be subjected to scrutiny by the courts. The English high court declined to intervene; the Scottish appeal court concluded that judges did have the legal authority to act.
In a unanimous verdict, the court ruled that Johnson’s decision to prorogue parliament could be examined by judges, overturning the ruling of the high court in London. Delivering judgment, Hale said: “The question arises in circumstances which have never arisen before and are unlikely to arise again.” Then, giving the court’s judgment on whether the decision to suspend parliament was legal, Hale said: “This court has … concluded that the prime minister’s advice to Her Majesty was unlawful, void and of no effect. This means that the order in council to which it led was also unlawful, void and of no effect should be quashed.
“This means that when the royal commissioners walked into the House of Lords [to prorogue parliament] it was as if they walked in with a blank sheet of paper. The prorogation was also void and of no effect. Parliament has not been prorogued.”
Hale continued: “It is for parliament, and in particular the Speaker and the Lord Speaker, to decide what to do next. Unless there is some parliamentary rule of which we are unaware, they can take immediate steps to enable each house to meet as soon as possible. It is not clear to us that any step is needed from the prime minister, but if it is, the court is pleased that his counsel has told the court that he will take all necessary steps to comply with the terms of any declaration made by this court.”
She added: “The court is bound to conclude, therefore, that the decision to advise Her Majesty to prorogue parliament was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification.”
The judgment says: “This was not a normal prorogation in the run-up to a Queen’s speech. It prevented parliament from carrying out its constitutional role for five out of a possible eight weeks between the end of the summer recess and exit day on 31 October.
“Parliament might have decided to go into recess for the party conferences during some of that period but, given the extraordinary situation in which the United Kingdom finds itself, its members might have thought that parliamentary scrutiny of government activity in the run-up to exit day was more important and declined to do so, or at least they might have curtailed the normal conference season recess because of that.
“Even if they had agreed to go into recess for the usual three-week period, they would still have been able to perform their function of holding the government to account. Prorogation means that they cannot do that.”
Responding to the judgment, the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, said the house must “convene without delay” and that he would be consulting party leaders “as a matter of urgency”. The supreme court ruling also overturns the decision by three of the most senior judges in England and Wales, including the lord chief justice, who earlier this month found in favour of the government that they did not have the legal authority to intervene.
