Tag: foreign affairs
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Philip Allott: The Short Title of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill Is Incorrect
The Short Title of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill is incorrect. The notification is not of withdrawal from the EU. As the Long Title and Clause 1(1) of the Bill correctly show, it is a European Union (Notification of Intention to Withdraw) Bill. Article 50(2) of the EU Treaty speaks only of notification…
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Thomas Poole: Losing our Religion? Public Law and Brexit
Prerogative is the enemy of the people. This has been settled as matter of law for a very long time. The constitutional settlement of 1688 made a decision for responsible and representative government. We have had no constitutional moment of similar magnitude since. All constitutional changes – some very significant – have taken place within…
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Campbell McLachlan QC: The Foreign Affairs Treaty Prerogative and the Law of the Land
A central plank in the reasoning of the Divisional Court in R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2016] EWHC 2768 at [96] is that ‘Absent such authority from the ECA [European Communities Act] 1972 or other statutes, the Crown cannot through the exercise of its prerogative powers alter the domestic…
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Timothy Endicott: ‘This Ancient, Secretive Royal Prerogative’
That was Gina Miller’s evocative phrase for the power of the Crown when she was interviewed on Radio 4 before the hearing in her case, R (on the application of Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2016] EWHC 2768. An ancient secretive royal prerogative sounds like the personal privilege of a despot…
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Keith Ewing: A Review of the Miller Decision
I Shortly after the referendum on 23 June, demands were made that continuing EU membership should now be considered by Parliament, with a view it seems to stop BREXIT happening, and to frustrate the will of the 17 million who voted to leave. Indeed, the Guardian carried an article only five days later on ‘How…
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David Feldman: Brexit, the Royal Prerogative, and Parliamentary Sovereignty
The issues in Miller In R. (Miller) v. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2016] EWHC 2768 (Admin) judges had to decide, as a matter of law, on the constitutionally correct procedure for deciding whether and when to notify the President of the European Council that the UK intends to leave the EU,…
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Piet Eeckhout: The UK Decision to Withdraw from the EU: Parliament or Government?
The litigation concerning the triggering of Art 50 TEU is under way, with hearings this past week and early next. It is the constitutional case of the century. The Government’s skeleton argument has been published. This reveals that one of the pillars of its defence is that the decision to withdraw from the EU has…
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Angela Patrick: Suing the state: judicial competence, restraint and redress in Belhadj
The coverage of last week’s Court of Appeal’s decision in Belhadj & Or. v Straw & Ors [2014] EWCA Civ 1394 has thus far generated more political heat than legal light. When a claim involves the suit of named officials and former Ministers for their alleged role in the rendition of a major political figure…