In what is likely one of the most historic and consequential rulings in the long history of the United Kingdom, the eleven-member Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has unanimously ruled that the suspension of Parliament engineered by Prime Minister Boris Johnson was unlawful and that the suspension was illegal and of no effect:
Britain’s highest court dealt a major blow on Tuesday to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, ruling that his controversial decision to suspend Parliament was unlawful, in a landmark judgment that will have immediate implications for Britain’s departure from the European Union.
In one of the most high-profile cases to come before Britain’s Supreme Court, the 11 judges ruled unanimously that Johnson had not acted lawfully in shuttering Parliament.
The court ruled that Johnson’s decision to ask Queen Elizabeth II to suspend Parliament essentially frustrated the ability of lawmakers to do the business of democracy, including debating Johnson’s plans for Brexit.
The decision was a brutal one for the embattled prime minister, asserting that his move to suspend the Parliament was political maneuver, and suggesting that he might have misled the queen.
Johnson, who is in New York for the U.N. General Assembly session, said he will not resign.
Brenda Hale, president of the Supreme Court, eviscerated the government’s case.
Sitting in the high court, Hale said that Johnson’s decision to suspend 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 court unanimously found that Johnson’s suspension was “void and of no effect,” meaning, essentially, that Parliament has not been suspended.
Opposition leaders said that they planned to reenter Westminster Palace on Wednesday and were awaiting a call from the John Bercow, the flamboyant speaker of the House of Commons, to bring them back into session.
“This is an absolutely momentous decision,” said Joanna Cherry, a Scottish politician who helped to launch the case in the Scottish courts.
Speaking immediately after the bombshell decision, Cherry there was nothing to stop parliamentarians from returning to work immediately. She also called on Johnson to step down.
More from The Guardian:
The supreme court has ruled that Boris Johnson’s advice to the Queen that parliament should be prorogued for five weeks at the height of the Brexit crisis was unlawful.
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. Unusually, none of the parties were provided with advance copies of the judgment due to its extreme sensitivity. Only seven of the 11 justices who heard the case were present in 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 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 [ to suspend parliament] 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.”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 [ to suspend parliament] 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.”
The impact and meaning of this ruling cannot be understated. Several British legal experts who have already commented on the matter on Twitter have called it “unprecedented,” and that alone makes it likely one of the most important such decisions in the long history of the United Kingdom. Essentially, the Supreme Court found that the Prime Minister had no legitimate basis for seeking a five-week suspension of Parliament, meaning that the Court effectively if not explicitly agreed with the finding of the Scottish High Court that Johnson had misled Queen Elizabeth II when he sought her assent to the suspension to begin with. While that assent and the request were mostly ceremonial, a finding that a sitting Prime Minister has lied to the Queen is a fairly serious one in the context of British politics, one that brings Johnson’s ability to continue to govern in considerable doubt.
The reaction from Members of Parliament is about what you’d expect it to be, with both Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, Scottish First Minister and leader of the Scottish National Party Nicola Sturgeon, and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn calling on Johnson to resign and threatening votes of no-confidence and other measures if he refuses to do so. Additionally, the outspoken House of Commons Speaker John Bercow has hailed the ruling as a victory for Parliamentary supremacy and announced that the House of Commons would resume business tomorrow morning. This means that Members of Parliament will be free to introduce no-confidence measures and other steps to force Johnson out of office and to stop the hard Brexit that would take place at the end of October absent an extension of time.
Where this heads next depends largely on how Boris Johnson reacts to this decision and what action Parliament will take based on Johnson’s reaction. Notwithstanding the stinging rebuke he received from the court today, it seems unlikely that Johnson will leave office voluntarily. If that is going to happen, he will have to be forced out via a vote of no-confidence that would require the support of at least some rebel Tory Members of Parliament. If there are enough such members to make a majority, then the most likely outcome would be new elections that would have to take place at roughly the same time as the currently scheduled Brexit deadline, something that would likely require Johnson to seek yet another extension from the European Union.
Whatever the next step is, though, there is no denying what has happened here and its significance for British politics both in the here-and-now of the Brexit debate and going forward. With this ruling, the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court has established itself and the British Courts as an important backstop in determining the power of the Prime Minister over Parliament. In some sense, this establishes the decision as a British equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1801 decision in Marbury v. Madison, which established the principle of judicial review over laws passed by Congress and acts undertaken by the President.
As things stand this morning, Johnson is in New York City attending the United Nations General Assembly. How long he’ll be able to pretend the political, legal, and constitutional earthquake back home didn’t happen, though, is another question.
Here’s the opinion:
UK Supreme Court Ruling by Doug Mataconis on Scribd
