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Thursday, September 12, 2019

Scottish court rules British PM’s parliament suspension unlawful!

LONDON: Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s suspension of the British parliament was unlawful, a Scottish court ruled on Wednesday, prompting immediate calls for lawmakers to return to work as the government and parliament battle over the future of Brexit.
Scotland’s highest court of appeal ruled that Johnson’s decision to prorogue, or suspend, parliament from Monday until October 14 was unlawful — a blow for the government as it seeks to leave the European Union on October 31 with or without a deal.
With seven weeks until Britain is due to leave the EU, the government and parliament are locked in conflict over the future of Brexit, with possible outcomes ranging from leaving without a deal to another referendum that could cancel the divorce.

“We are calling for parliament to be recalled immediately,” said Scottish National Party lawmaker Joanna Cherry, who led the challenge, after the verdict by Scotland’s Court of Session. “You cannot break the law with impunity, Boris Johnson.”
The government said it would appeal against the ruling to the Supreme Court, the United Kingdom’s highest judicial body.
Johnson announced on August 28 that parliament would be prorogued, saying the government wanted the suspension so it could then launch a new legislative agenda.
Opponents said the real reason was to shut down debate and challenges to his Brexit plans. The court was shown documents that showed Johnson was considering prorogation weeks before he formally asked Queen Elizabeth to suspend the legislature.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the ruling. Misleading the monarch, who under Britain’s unwritten constitution must be apolitical, would be considered a grave affront.
Johnson, who was a figurehead for the Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 referendum, when 52 per cent of voters backed Brexit, has rejected opposition complaints that he was denying parliament the right to debate Brexit in an undemocratic way.
Dominic Grieve, one of 21 Brexit rebels thrown out of Johnson’s Conservative Party last week, said that if Johnson had misled the queen over the reasons for prorogation, he should resign.
Johnson’s bid to quit the bloc “do or die” on October 31 has hit the buffers: parliament has ordered him to delay Brexit until 2020 unless he strikes a deal while a new Brexit Party is threatening to poach Conservative voters.
After three years of tortuous Brexit crisis, British politics is in turmoil, with the prime minister blocked by parliament and an election or even a second referendum on the cards.
In an excoriating judgment, the Scottish judges ruled the principal reason for parliament’s suspension was to stymie lawmakers and allow Johnson to pursue a no-deal Brexit policy.
“This was an egregious case of a clear failure to comply with generally accepted standards of behaviour of public authorities,” concluded one judge, Philip Brodie, according to a summary of the court verdict.

— AFP

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