Politics
2019.09.25 00:46 GMT+8

UK prime minister's suspension of parliament overruled by court

Updated 2019.09.25 00:46 GMT+8
Richard Bestic at the Supreme Court

In an historic ruling, Britain's highest court has ruled UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson broke the law when he shut down Parliament.

Johnson suspended  – or prorogued – Parliament  for five weeks earlier this month, but eleven Supreme Court judges ruled it was wrong to stop MP's working so close to Britain's Brexit deadline.

Johnson has said he'll accept the court's ruling and Members of Parliament will get back to work Wednesday.

It is however a major setback for the British Premier, who has pledged to take Britain out of the European Union, "Do or Die" by October 31st.

Supreme Court judges have said unanimously there was no "reasonable justification" to prevent Members of Parliament scrutinizing the government.

And they added, perhaps ominously, that the legal advice given by the Prime Minister to the Monarch, Queen Elizabeth justifying a Parliamentary suspension was unlawful.

Johnson is now facing a storm of calls for his resignation – in part for allegedly misleading the Queen and for his role in closing Parliament.

Lady Brenda Hale, the President of the Supreme Court, said the "effect on the fundamentals of democracy was extreme."

The Prime Minister has said he disagrees with the ruling, but will respect it.

His lawyers had argued in court that he needed to shut Parliament to prepare what he called an "exciting" platform of policies to be unveiled in the autumn.

Critics and campaigners against the Parliamentary closure argued it was intended to frustrate scrutiny of the government's hard line Brexit plans.

Following the ruling, it will be as if Parliament had never been prorogued and it'll be back to business Wednesday.  

House of Commons Speaker, John Bercow, welcomed the Supreme Court ruling and said there would be plenty of opportunities for ministers to be held to account by MP's.

In his two months in office Boris Johnson has lost six Parliamentary votes, he's lost his Parliamentary majority through defections and sackings and he's apparently lost control of the Brexit agenda.

Members of Parliament have made it illegal for him to take Britain out of the European Union without at least some transitional trading arrangements in place and those must be approved by Parliament.

Failing that he must return to Brussels and seek a further extension to Britain's Brexit deadline – something the Premier has said he would never do.

He's also under pressure to reveal to Brexit negotiators in Brussels a viable alternative to the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated by Theresa May, his predecessor in No.10 Downing Street.

The Supreme Court ruling doesn't change the political fundamentals of Britain's Brexit chaos, but it certainly changes the mood among Parliamentarians.

Johnson's options are narrowing and accusations that he's misled the Monarch are not going to win him any friends.

Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn – one among many calling for Johnson's resignation – is leaving his party conference early in order to return to the UK capital and a freshly reopened Parliament.

The leaders of all Britain's other opposition parties, who will also be eager to jubilantly turn the legal knife in the Prime Minister's political wounds, will join him.

In New York Johnson has said he "refused to be deterred" and will be getting on with what he called "an exciting and dynamic domestic agenda."

Then he added, to the mystification of some, that to do that he would need a Queen's Speech, the Parliamentary process by which the Monarch outlines the government legislative plans. That was the justification he originally used for initiating the prorogation and could open the way to another suspension.

 

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