Source: https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2018/06/26/robert-craig-new-article-50-case-resoundingly-rejected-by-the-divisional-court/
Timestamp: 2018-09-22 22:15:25
Document Index: 670983474

Matched Legal Cases: ['Art.50', 'Art.50', 'Art.50', 'UKHL ', '§15', '§13', '§122', '§87', '§15']

Robert Craig: New Article 50 Case Resoundingly Rejected by the Divisional Court | UK Constitutional Law Association
9 comments on “Robert Craig: New Article 50 Case Resoundingly Rejected by the Divisional Court”
Robert, I am a bit simple when it comes to the English language. When something in law is declared ‘Arbitrary’ it means it should be changed. How can Her Majesty agree to whatever is agreed and put a signature to it, knowing full well, that the political process (with all the back room legal interpretation) said the ’15 year rule’ was a mischief? That is a major constitutional issue: “Dear Queen, you said this and now you say that, without asking for clarification…………………….you are naughty but I do like you.” Thump.
ADT 09:55 26/06/18 In Wattstown Rhondda.
The Government brought this particular litigation on itself by its ramshackle manner of taking the decision to leave the EU.
The question of how the decision relating to Article 50 was or should be taken was given little airtime in the Miller case. The Attorney General asserted in the High Court (Day 2 pp59-60) that the decision had already been taken by a series of steps, starting with the Conservative manifesto commitment to hold a referendum, followed by the referendum itself and its result, and then culminating in the press conferences held in the street outside No 10 where, first, David Cameron and then Theresa May confirmed that they would respect the referendum result. Had the Government succeeded in Miller, that would have been the sum total of decision-making by the Government.
If that process had been sufficient to constitute a decision, then that would in fact have triggered Article 50, since it is the decision, not the notification, that is the start of the process. Once the decision is made, it is then mandatory (‘shall’) under Article 50(2) to give notification of it to the EU.
The conventional manner in which the Crown makes treaty-related decisions is by way of a meeting of the Privy Council making an Order in Council. Making decisions by press conferences in the sunshine is a constitutional novelty and arguably invalid, since Bacon’s Abridgement (referred to in the Miller case) stated that proclamations require the Great Seal to be valid. None of these formalities was observed, despite the importance of the decision to withdraw from the EU and of knowing precisely when and how it was taken.
The EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Act was a curiosity of drafting. Rather than authorising the Crown to make a decision to withdraw, it oddly referred to the Prime Minister rather than the Crown, authorising her to give a notification, which the UK was bound to do anyway once it had decided to withdraw. Nevertheless, Parliament’s intention to authorise withdrawal was abundantly clear.
Following the passing of that Act on 16 March 2017, there were two cabinet meetings to consider and approve the terms of the Article 50 notice. The notice itself was then delivered on 29 March 2017. Thus, however the actual decision was made, it seems unarguable that, by the time the Article 50 notice was served (or by virtue of its being signed and served), the UK Government had made a valid decision to withdraw in accordance with its constitutional requirements.
No surprise with this judgement.
As I said in a tweet on 11 April 2018:
People said we ‘should’ leave 😢
SC said PM had to get Pt permission to send letter.
Pt said PM ‘could’ send letter.
PM decided we ‘would’ leave when she signed, sealed and sent the letter.
The letter was the point of decision.
Contrary to Professor Craig and the Divisional Court, I believe Webster raises a constitutionally important question of law, namely was the purported notification under article 50 by the Prime Minister void ab initio because of antecedent error of law.
This claimant’s case is described in Webster at [4] as:
“the United Kingdom has not taken a qualifying decision within Art.50(1). It has therefore not fulfilled a necessary condition precedent to notifying the decision under Art.50(2).”a necessary condition precedent to notifying the decision under Art.50(2).
This question of law is answered (on a renewed application for permission heard by a Divisional Court finding no less!) at [15] with the finding that the article 50(1) and 50(2) decisions were lawfully taken together by the Prime Minister.
Resolution of this question of law is a matter of construction of a statute European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 and the Prime Minister’s letter. Such questions can only by authoratively answered by the Courts exercising their exclusive supervisory jurisdiction.
The High Court (including its Divisional Courts) not only has lawful discretion to grant relief out of time it has very recently (23 March 2018) exercised this power on a matter of far less legal consequence (a planning permission) with a delay that was far longer than the delay in Webster:
1. Thornton Hall Hotel Ltd, R (On the Application Of) v Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council [2018] EWHC 560 (Admin) [2018] PTSR 954, [2018] WLR(D) 188
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2018/560.html
The genuine question of law Professor Craig raises in his final paragraph is, in my opinion, a legitimate question of statutory construction that does not appear to be expressly addressed in the judgment:
“Worse still, this case appeared to be inviting the courts to hold that EUNoWA was some kind of contingent Act in case, one day, parliament (or someone else?) somehow happened to make a formal, legal “decision” to leave the EU and parliament then passed another Act to give effect to that “decision”. Only at this point would EUNoWA suddenly kick in and the Prime Minister would be able to start the process”
Essentially this a question of whether the meaning of the 2017 Act on statutory construction is that the Parliament did not merely confer the power of notification on the Prime Minister but had the intention that this power could be lawfully exercised without further enactment
Parliamentary intention means the meaning the Courts give to the words of a statute .
See eg Pepepr v Hart [1992] 3 WLR 1032, [1992] STC 898, [1992] UKHL 3, [1993] 1 All ER 42, [1993] AC 593, [1993] ICR 291, [1993] IRLR 33, [1993] RVR 127
That raises the further question of whether the 2017 Act itself can be construed as Parliament taking the article 50(1) decision itself, which the Divisional Court in Webster answered to the contrary.
In my view this is wrong and that high-policy decision was taken by Parliament (whatever individual Parliamentarians thought they were doing)
The contentions in the Prime Minister’s letter about the “decision” raise legitimate doubts about whether the Prime Minister made the error of law that the referendum had already taken the decision to leave the EU rather than taking the decision herself ; see the gnomic contingent finding in Miller at [124]:
Professor Craig states:
“Furthermore, as the judge fairly caustically pointed out, we do not know who the claimant thought should actually be taking this apparently legally mandated formal “decision”, never mind how.”
Personally, unlike Professor Craig I would like permission for appeal to be granted so everyone in the UK and the EU has absolute legal certainty as to who took the article 50 decision and under what precise legal power.
The extensive case law on protective costs orders provides copious authority for the proposition that judicial-review cases on statutory construction are of the highest public importance.
Michael Stanton #FBPE #WATON (@don_mickael)
Twitter provides an opportunity for ignoramuses like me to say how we feel about things we may not understand. The £190,000 raised by A50 Challenge is an indication of the strength of that feeling for some of us.
The Courts have ruled that the questions we have been asking are not judiciable. The fact that we feel the need to ask them and seem to get no answers suggests that the Legislative and Executive branches of government are failing in their duty of good governance. One brief example:
Mr Cameron said: “If a majority of the People, including …. all those who have the right to vote, say ‘out’, out it will be. The Government will implement that decision.”
In the event, only 37% of the Electorate voted out. And yet, in the March 2017 House of Commons division on the EUNOWA, 494 MPs voted Aye, or 76% of those entitled to vote. In effect, therefore, Parliament emphatically voted for Brexit in direct contradiction of the EUreferendum result.
Under Britain’s democratic, constitutional arrangements, do the People have any formal right of redress? Judicial review, or a political equivalent, would have been ideal. Instead, we seem doomed to tweet with rage and exasperation, like birds in a cage. Until the next General Election, perhaps, but that, I fear, will be too late ….. under our democratic, constitutional arrangements.
The U.K. Government has clearly been intent on making-up legal procedures “on the hoof”! There is a clear reason why standard procedures were not followed, which I shouldn’t need to point out.
Suffice to say it has had the intended consequences of benefitting the Government in its clear objective of leaving the E.U. – in complete contradiction to its pre-Referendum stated aim!
This is not democracy – as neither was the scurrilous and totally inadequate “information debate” that proceeded the E.U. Referendum vote – which nobody on the Leave side of the debate now wishes to discuss.
“The will of the UNINFORMED people” is all that matters, and established legal procedures can be sidestepped with impunity, at the whim of the dictatorial Prime Minister.
Nice to know that this is the current state of democracy in the U.K!
Very interesting. I was involved in a Judicial Review against a council that essentially went through the same motions in passing a planning application. In a nutshell, an executive body can make any stupid decision it wants as long as it is following process i.e the decision is made legally. In the case of the issue I was involved with it was found that a party to the planning application had submitted fraudulent information. This allowed us to go back and show that the process had not been followed and pursue damages although it could not change the decision because it was too late (it had gone ahead). I note that the party in the challenge outlined above is now going back an arguing that Vote Leaves overspending should have voided the referendum under electoral rules. If that is successfully argued and the referendum result is voided what would the impact of that be on the triggering of Article 50? Would the impact be merely political i.e. Government could continue on the basis that the referendum result did not matter either way? Theoretically, your analysis shows that the Government could have triggered Article 50 even if the referendum had been negative however the reality is that had the referendum been in Remains favour parliament would not have given authority to the Government to trigger Article 50. It is certainly the case that without a clear result on the referendum the Government would not have got the authority to trigger Article 50. I would be interested to know your views, Professor Craig.
Our system of justice depends on absolute and unwavering respect for our independent judiciary. The ultimate purpose of the courts is, however, to serve ordinary people who believe that they have been wronged by conduct that is contrary to the law. Proper respect for the judiciary requires that plaintiffs should present their cases to the courts through intermediaries trained in the law and in the formalities of argument. Perhaps a reciprocal respect is due. Perhaps, when a plaintiff is rebuffed, the court should give its judgment in language that is as far as possible directly comprehensible, not only to the plaintiff, but to members of the general public who may share the plaintiff’s concern.
The judgment given in Webster is, in places, rather obscure. It is difficult, for example, for an ordinary person to recognize, in the Prime Minister’s letter, the difference (§15) between “the language of decision” and that of “notification alone”: perhaps some assistance could have been offered. The paragraph does, however, make it clear in the end that a decision to withdraw from the EU was taken by the Prime Minister under authority given by the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Act.
That drives us backward to §13 and a more troubling obscurity, in the words “authorisation to .. notify .. plainly .. encompassed the power to take a decision to withdraw”. What is plain to the judicial mind may not be so to that of an ordinary person. Is the power to take that decision encompassed by a necessary implication from “authorisation to notify” to actual withdrawal? Can that necessity be upheld in the face of the fact that the Act says “may notify” and not “shall notify” or of the observation that it is not impossible for a notification to be invalid, to assert an intention to withdraw that does not in fact exist? Once again, some assistance might have been offered.
Paragraph 11 of the Webster judgment also raises doubt about the power of decision said to be encompassed. It cites §122 of the Supreme Court’s Miller judgment but neglects §87, which draws attention to Lord Hoffman’s warning that, where loss of rights is involved, “Parliament must squarely confront what it is doing and accept the political cost”. In the absence of express words in the Act and of necessary implication, should the Webster judgment presume that Parliament intended to delegate a decision that involved an inevitable loss of rights?
An untutored mind might come to wonder whether §15’s rejection of the requirement for an additional formality does not in the end amount to rejection of the requirement for any formality at all.
This entry was posted on June 26, 2018 by Constitutional Law Group in Europe, European Union, Judicial review, UK government and tagged Article 50 TEU, Brexit, Divisional Court, European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017, notification under article 50 TEU, R (Webster) v Secretary of State for Exiting the EU.
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