Tag: European Referendum Act 2015
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David Howarth: On Parliamentary Silence
One of the most striking aspects of the arguments of counsel in Miller, as Rachel Jones has pointed out, was how much the disagreement between the parties focussed on the meaning of silence. The government’s case boiled down to an assertion that silence on the issue of whether legislation was needed to invoke Article 50…
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Robert Craig: Report of Proceedings: Miller v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, Supreme Court, Day 3
Introduction This post aims to summarise the highlights of the Supreme Court (SC) hearing on Day 3 (7 December 2016) of the hearings in the Miller v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union case. As mentioned in previous posts, and as with the reports on the High Court (HC), this report will not…
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Rachel Jones: The Importance of Silences in the “Brexit” Appeals
“[T]here has been a longstanding resistance, as a matter of law, to the idea that legislative inaction or silence, filtered through a judicial stethoscope, can be made to sound out changes in the law’s lyrics – altering the prevailing patterns of rights, powers, or privileges that collectively constitute the message of our laws.” (Lawrence Tribe,…
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Michael Doherty: Should Making False Statements in a Referendum Campaign Be an Electoral Offence?
Oldham, 2010: In a closely fought election, where immigration was a central issue, the Labour candidate Phil Woolas published statements about his LibDem opponent that were found to be false statements of fact in relation to his personal character or conduct without believing them to be true, contrary to s.106 Representation of the People Act…
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Katie Boyle and Leanne Cochrane: Rights Derived from EU law: Informing the Referendum Process
This week the UK Government is under a duty to publish information about rights and obligations that arise under European Union (EU) law as a result of the UK’s EU membership (see section 7, European Referendum Act 2015). EU law applies domestically under the European Communities Act 1972, section 2 of which provides that all…