Source: http://www.actionforeurope.org.uk/legalcase
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 02:04:51+00:00

Document:
Action for Europe - Article 50: the trigger that never was?
On March 29 Sir Tim Barrow delivered a letter from the UK Prime Minister Theresa May to European Council President Donald Tusk purporting to give notice under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union of Britain’s decision to quit the EU. Extraordinary as it may seem this article argues there was no legal basis for such notice, the letter had no legal effect and it completely failed in its declared purpose. In short, Article 50 has not been activated. The letter was a faux trigger, a chimera, an illusion, not the real thing.
To see why we are in this incredible predicament we need to begin by visiting the decision of the Supreme Court (SC) in the Gina Miller case, R. (on the application of Miller and another) (Respondents) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Appellant)  UKSC 5 (https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2016-0196 -judgment.pdf. There it was held quite unequivocally (at paras 116 to 125) that the Referendum result was not a constitutionally binding decision to leave: it had to be ratified by an Act of Parliament because only our legislature could make the decision. After Miller the ball was firmly in the government’s court but the only legislation which Parliament enacted in response to the judgment, the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017, did no more than bestow the Prime Minister with authority to give notice under Article 50. It merely made provision for the initiation of a procedure and did not either expressly or by implication address the substantive issue of whether the UK should withdraw from the EU. This could be the greatest elephant in the room – or the emperor’s new clothes – of all time. It is difficult to believe that with so many lawyers in Parliament and with all that breathtaking array of legal glitterati deployed at vast expense in Miller no one in government or Parliament spotted its fundamental deficiency.
The question is whether there has been a binding decision to withdraw, as to which notification under Article 50 is compulsory. Miller held that in the particular context of the European Union Referendum Act 2015 the phrase “in accordance with its own constitutional requirements” in Art. 50(1) effectively translates as “by means of an Act of Parliament.” The reason for this, as the SC made crystal clear, is that under the 2015 Act the Referendum result itself did not enjoy the constitutional status of a decision to withdraw. The obvious contrast is with the 2011 Referendum on the question whether the alternative voting system should be adopted in Parliamentary elections. In making legislative provision for that referendum Parliament specifically determined that the outcome was to have a statutorily binding effect without the need for Parliamentary ratification (Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, s.8; see Miller, para 118).
On the face of it this certainly does not appear to express any decision by Parliament to withdraw but is confined to giving an authority to the PM to notify the UK’s intention to withdraw. If, however, there has been no statutorily binding decision to withdraw there can be said to be no intention to do so, the words decision and intention being synonymous. So when Mrs May’s letter to Donald Tusk was delivered on March 29 there had been no constitutional decision (that is, no such binding declaration of intent) about which to notify him and so nothing material to communicate. Art.50(2) was not yet capable of being implemented.
Could the 2017 Act have amounted to an implicit decision to leave?
Yet in spite of appearances might s.1(1) nonetheless have been intended – and understood – to stand as an implicit decision to exit? The SC ruled in Miller that Parliament in essence owns the Leave/Remain decision in consequence of the European Communities Act 1972 and other relevant provisions. It may be asked whether in giving the Prime Minister authority to invoke Article 50 Parliament was thereby implicitly exercising its constitutional power (consequent upon but independent of the Referendum vote) to decide that the UK should exit the EU. The argument in essence is that Acts of Parliament are presumed to be purpose led, that without such an implicit decision the notification authority bestowed on the PM would have had no purpose, and accordingly that the implicit decision to withdraw must be read into the Act to infuse it with meaning.
“This House passed an Act to deliver a referendum without placing conditions on the result. On 23 June 2016, the British people delivered their verdict. The Bill is not about revisiting that debate; rather it responds to the judgment of the Supreme Court that an Act of Parliament is required to authorise ministers to give notice of the decision of the UK to withdraw from the European Union” (https://hansard. parliament.uk/lords/2017-02-20/debates/30224DBB-4C77-4D65-A591-699EB7F99981/EuropeanUnion (NotificationOfWithdrawal)Bill).
So, in spite of and in contravention, if not defiance, of Miller the government remained rooted to its position that the decision had already been made in the shape of the Referendum vote. No Parliamentary ratification was required, Davis was telling Parliament. Article 50 was ready to go. It may or may not be appropriate in the present context to invoke the authority of Pepper v Hart,  3 WLR 1032, for the purpose of inferring legislative intent from ministerial pronouncements reported in Hansard.
Pepper created a limited exception to the long-established rule that courts were not permitted to take cognisance of ministerial or other statements made in parliament. The change gave courts a new discretion (not an obligation) to consider ministerial statements, but only as an aid to interpretation where the wording of the statute was ambiguous. “Ambiguity” is defined by dictionaries as doubtful, indeterminate, equivocal. Any contention that implicit in the wording of the Act is the extended, further recondite purpose of ratifying the Referendum as a constitutional decision must involve an admission that the ambit of the statutory words is a matter of doubt or uncertainty. The ministerial statements must therefore be admissible in the discretion of any court. As to the discretion, where such pronouncements are overtly in concordance with the natural meaning of the legislative text it would seem wholly unreasonable and unrealistic to ignore them.
But even if in the event of litigation the statements were strictly speaking inadmissible under Pepper a court in judging any claim that there was such a unexpressed recondite purpose behind the wording would have to assume that on that basis Parliament had manifestly failed in its responsibility to implement the obligation imposed by Miller and earlier authorities to be clear and precise in enacting laws which impact on fundamental rights. The presumption would have to be that Parliament has not failed in its duty and that it was doing precisely what the Act lays down and no more, namely giving the Prime Minister a warrant to notify the EU of any decision of the UK to leave the EU.
Very oddly, however, the government seem to have been dismissive and secretive about the possibility of trouble. In the Commons on March 14 the leading Eurosceptic politician Sir William (“Bill”) Cash, Conservative member for Stone, asked the Prime Minister whether it was time to take legal advice in order to thwart unforeseen further attempts to undo the Bill, to which Mrs May gave an assurance that the government took appropriate legal advice at every stage but, as she reminded Cash, they did not discuss it on the Floor of the House (https:// hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2017-03-14/deba tes/B58 26F13-CE59-42DD-9DE4-ACDEA7E308DA/European Council).
It follows that the government’s lawyers in Miller were almost certainly not responsible for drafting the bill which became the EU(NoW) Act 2017 and may not even have been consulted on it. In any event they were either ignored or overruled by someone who thought that the decision was none of Parliament’s business.
Moreover it is difficult to understand why no legally qualified members of Parliament alighted upon the fundamental problem, in particular why Sir Keir Starmer, a distinguished QC, former DPP and Labour’s Brexit spokesman said nothing. One would have assumed that he and his team would have been poring ceaselessly over the relevant authorities and texts. In short, it may be asked whether this was collective blindness and ineptitude or whether there was method in the madness.
But quite apart from its grammatical infelicities there is a fundamental disharmony between Art.50(2) and the sub-section. Although, as the SC recognised in Miller, Article 50 “operates only on the international plane,” and was not brought into UK law (para.104) there must be comity between the article and the 2017 Act. Yet whereas the Act merely authorises the Prime Minister to give notice (she “may” do so) it does not carry through the obligation laid down by Art.50(2). It is not therefore a legislative instrument which implements Art.50(2), in spite of purporting to do so through the phrase “under Article 50(2).” Had the Act stated “The Prime Minister shall notify the European Council . . . etc” it would have effected a valid implementation (assuming for argument’s sake that the Referendum itself constituted the legal decision or had otherwise been made such by Parliamentary ratification). It may be asked whether Parliament was too deferential for its own good.
There are perhaps two explanations as to why Ministers inaccurately told Parliament that the constitutional leave decision had already been made. One is genuine error and muddle on the part of HMG lawyers and that HMG acted on bad advice. The problem may have been aggravated by the fact that Miller was concerned essentially with the question whether or not the Government could use its prerogrative treaty-making powers to give notice without Parliamentary sanction. The SC held that the Government needed an Act of Parliament to authorise notification but did not in terms tell the Secretary of State to obtain an Act of Parliament ratifying the Referendum decision, although they made it very clear that the leave result had no constitutionally binding effect. Yet it would hardly have been “rocket science” for some wily lawyer in the government’s service to pick up on the point. It ought to have been obvious that the Act needed to ratify the result in order to validate notification under Article 50. It would truly be a wonder if HMG really were so ill-prepared as to rush out a fundamentally defective bill but this can hardly be ruled out.
But there may perhaps be another possibility, one almost verging on the surreal. We are told that once Article 50 has been invoked and notice of withdrawal given there can be no turning back (see Miller, para 26). The EU would be unmoved by any second referendum which rejected the outcome of negotiations. Article 50 is supposedly a one-way ticket. Once notice is served the Member State will leave. So if the EU offers the UK unacceptable terms it will be too late to relent and we shall have no option but to walk away from membership with nothing but World Trade Organisation Rules on which to rely. Wags might therefore ask whether the government’s true plan was to adopt a policy of insurance, to deploy sleight of hand in all this, intending later on to respond to the possibility of a bad deal by saying “We now find we never did invoke Article 50 so we’ll stay in the EU after all, thank you very much.” Doubtless the EU would be only too delighted and so would have an inherent interest in playing along with the charade – except that they would also have a motive in blocking a good exit deal for Britain in order to pressurise us into staying. The crypto Remainers win the day. So strong and stable . . . and sneaky.
Whether the EU would collectively collaborate knowingly in a charade is fanciful. Jesting aside however, it is understood that since this article went online on June 2 its text has been communicated through unofficial channels to all the EU Member States and to certain very senior officials. It is interesting to conjecture what reaction the European Council may in consequence evince if, notwithstanding TEU Article 4, they express concern about the possible validity of the thrust of the argument presented here. If at the start of the negotiating process the UK government team are challenged to justify the government’s claim that Article 50 has been triggered it may be envisaged that there will be at least some on the European side who may take some convincing. This could conceivably cause significant delay since the Council would be unlikely to agree to start negotiations if there is any possibility that at the end of the process it is concluded that Britain never did decide to leave “in accordance with its own constitutional requirements” and that time, effort and enormous cost will have been expended to no avail. It should not be overlooked that any Member State which has qualms might challenge the legitimacy of the process in the European Court of Justice by virtue of TEU Article 263. Subject to the question whether such action might be time barred under the article that possibility alone might cause the Council to postpone negotiations as well the withdrawal of the offices of various EU agencies from the UK.
It should be further pointed out that the validity of all consequent agreements with the UK and any treaty of withdrawal will be dependent on there having been a withdrawal decision made by the UK in accordance with its own constitutional requirements. If there has been no such decision there can be no valid withdrawal.
The EU Director-General of Legal Services has received a copy of the article and it is understood will have drawn it to the attention of the Commission. It is to be noted that as a matter of prudence the Commission may well be intending to refer any concerns they may have over the UK's ostensible triggering of Art 50 to the European Union Court of Justice under Lisbon Art 17, for their own protection in the event of later censure by the European Parliament.
Yet even appointing a Royal Commission, for example, to put the diverse relevant issues under the microscope would still leave the problem that until the outcome of negotiations be known it would simply not be feasible to make a rational assessment of the balance of advantage. Since the European Council have refused to enter provisional negotiations before Article 50 is triggered, and would ex hypothesi continue to refuse to do so, there could be no logical way in the final analysis for the government to make a rational legislative withdrawal recommendation to Parliament based on all relevant considerations. The Catch 22 is that you can’t make a comprehensive determination of the balance of advantage without negotiating for a deal, and you can’t negotiate for a deal without deciding to leave.
The only way to avoid this intractable conundrum – to avoid the paradox of unworkability – would be for the government to secure the enactment of a leave decision as soon as possible without regard to any assessment of the balance of advantage. The problem here, however, is that in effect it would be treating the simple majority vote in the Referendum as the exclusive factor on which Parliament was to make the decision, in contravention of the inherently consultative nature of the Referendum. Perception of this escape route from the trap which the Cameron government made for themselves may explain David Cameron’s pledge, early in 2016, that his government would not merely “respect the outcome” but would “implement the result,” an express disavowal of the consultative nature of the Referendum defined by the terms of their own EUR Act 2015.
It is unclear whether the problem could be resolved through a second referendum based on a comprehensive prognosis of the consequences of leaving. It would depend on the EU’s agreement for this to take place after the negotiation process. Another less elaborate option might also lie with the EU, who might indicate that they would be likely to show greater largesse towards Britain’s position in any negotiation if a second referendum were now held based on different criteria. Because of the shambles first time round they might insist on a better one ensuring more certainty and legitimacy. Thus it might include the provision for a threshold super-majority of 60 or 66 per cent to change the status quo and the enfranchisement of expatriate Britons presently disqualified from having the vote. With such conditions the new referendum could be made expressly decisive in its own right without the requirement for ratification.
The alternative to a second referendum might be to allow a free vote in Parliament, absent a fresh referendum. This would be entirely consonant with the true purpose of the 2016 referendum – a mere consultative exercise. As already noted it has been contended that once Article 50 is invoked there can be no turning back and that any second thoughts would require an application to rejoin the Union involving insuperable obstacles. However those who favour a second referendum are doubtless confident that in reality the Union would be disposed to greet such an application, if not actually conceding revocation, with a strong sense of relief and to treat it as a virtual formality.
It scarcely seems credible that HMG could have set out to circumvent the problem by deliberately misrepresenting the Referendum as the constitutional decision. Yet, just as it is conceivable that any Member State might seek in the ECJ to challenge the validity of the UK government’s contention that the UK has decided to leave it is conceivable that if the government persists in the charade of claiming that the constitutional decision was made by the Referendum there must assuredly be counterpart legal redress available domestically. Any concerned UK citizen with the necessary funds might seek on ultra vires grounds to ban the Government from executing a treaty of withdrawal under Article 263 of the 1969 Vienna Convention whatever the result of the negotiating process. Indeed it would be conceivably be feasible to seek to prohibit the start or continuation of the negotiating process designed to procure that end, and here we shall be back to Miller. The delivery of the March 29 letter was a legal non-event and so probably not in itself unlawful but beginning negotiations with a view to a making a withdrawal treaty not sanctioned by the UK Parliament would be likely to be unlawful. This is because, as Miller made clear, the government enjoys no unilateral prerogative power to withdraw from the EU.
The highlighted passages have been added since the online version was last amended.
David Wolchover is a barrister at Ridgeway Chambers and Article6Law Chambers, 2 King’s Bench Walk. He was formerly Head of Chambers at 7 Bell Yard and is the author of many articles and a number of works on criminal evidence and procedure.

References: UKSC 
 Art. 50
 Art.50
 Art.50
 Art.50
 Art.50
 Art 50
 Art 17