It was predicted, it was warned against, and it happened: Prime Minister Theresa May’s government cannot commence the official process for leaving the European Union without parliamentary approval.
In upholding the decision of the lower court Parliament, deemed the sovereign voice of the UK, was again affirmed as ultimate arbiter, the historical figure of force that cannot be bypassed. This flies well and truly in the face of the semi-authoritarian May, who has used Brexit as alibi and deflector in asserting the state’s famed prerogative powers.
The Crown, it was argued again, had prerogative power to enter into and withdraw from treaties. This could be exercised in relation to the EU Treaties. To that end, there would be no need for Parliament (in other words, an act of parliament), merely the serving of a Notice that the EU Treaties would cease to apply. That, at least, was the gist of what was put before the Supreme Court.
By a majority of 8 to 3, the Supreme Court dismissed the Secretary of State’s appeal. The sheer impact of withdrawal from the European compact was no minor affair, being a legal revolution of some proportion and consequence: “Withdrawal makes a fundamental change to the UK’s constitutional arrangements, by cutting off the source of EU law.”
The sting in the tail of the majority judgment lay in the removal, effectively, of certain domestic rights guaranteed by EU laws. For that very reason, it was “impermissible” that the…