VOTE LEAVE & LEAVE.EU REMAIN UNDER INVESTIGATION

The rabidly pro-Brexit website Guido Fawkes had a field day yesterday with the news that the legal representative of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) had rejected a call by some MPs, including the LibDem Tom Brake, to get a move on in their year-long investigation into both leave campaigns. Brake, Caroline Lucas and Ben Bradshaw recently applied for a judicial review and yesterday the MPS provided a robust defence to the charge of foot dragging.  However, the case has yet to come before a court so no one knows what a judge thinks.

UK CAN WITHDRAW ARTICLE 50 UNILATERALLY

The ECJ has provided a definitive ruling this morning that the UK can unilaterally withdraw Article 50 (HERE). The British government has spent a lot of taxpayer's money trying to avoid the ECJ making such a determination but now we have it. The Spectator has the full judgement (HERE) but the important part is paragraph 69 which says:

ARTICLE 50 IS REVOKABLE - ECJ ADVISOR SAYS

The European Court of Justice has released a provisional opinion (HERE) drafted by the Advocate General, the Court's legal advisor, that Article 50 can be unilaterally revoked before the two year period is up. This hands parliament and the government (if it would only realise it) another powerful option. It absolutely reinforces the notion that there is no need for us to crash out without a deal. The government has it in its power to stop it.

SUE WILSON'S LEGAL CHALLENGE

A few weeks ago I posted about a lady named Sue Wilson (HERE) who, with others has launched a legal challenge to the decision to proceed with Article 50 when there was credible evidence of corruption and illegality in the campaign, especially the leave campaign. They argue the PM should not have carried on regardless.

ARTICLE 50 CHALLENGE CAN GO AHEAD!

The government's attempt to stop the European Court of Justice from issuing a ruling about the revocability of Article 50 has been rejected (HERE). The Supreme Court in London this morning ruled against the Brexit Secretary (whoever that is today). This means on November 27th the ECJ will now hear the case.

ARTICLE 50 LEGAL CHALLENGE

I recently posted about the government's appeal to prevent a Scottish court referring to the  ECJ for a ruling on whether the UK can withdraw Article 50 (HERE). Their appeal was to the UK Supreme Court but yesterday the QC behind the case tweeted:

MORE LEGAL STUFF

There is another legal challenge being launched into the prime minister's decision to leave the EU.  A claimant named Susan Wilson, from the Bremain in Spain ex-pats group I believe, plus others not named, have submitted grounds for a judicial review to the High Court (HERE). Essentially, they are focusing on the corruption and illegality surrounding the referendum itself and whether the PM was right to proceed or not with Article 50. It's 52 pages altogether so not a light read. 

HENRY VIII POWERS

A steady stream of legislation in the form of Statutory Instruments (SIs) flows out of the Department for Exiting the EU (DEXEU) with ever longer titles. The latest of these appear on the news feed lower down the right hand sidebar of this blog. SIs are subordinate legislation passed on a sort of ministerial decree without much or usually any parliamentary scrutiny. They are known in shorthand as Henry VIII powers. 

MORE LEGAL STUFF

You may have noticed reports about the Electoral Commission being accused of getting the law wrong in a way that helped the leave campaign, something they deny, but clearly the EC did give flawed advice to Vote Leave which led to their campaign overspending. We know they got the law wrong because the high court decided so on 14th September (HERE). The case was brought by The Good Law project.

ARTICLE 50 REVOCATION

I am very pleased to say the Scottish Court of Sessions has decided that the ECJ should hear a case to decide if Britain can unilaterally revoked the Article 50 notification (HERE). I am particularly happy because I contributed to the funding of the case through CrowdJustice. The case had been rejected once by a lower court after it accepted that the Government does not intend to withdraw the A50 notice and so the question whether it can do so or not is hypothetical.

ARTICLE 50 CHALLENGE GRINDS ON

It's some time since I wrote about the Article 50 challenge - 13th June in fact - mainly because there was no good news. This if you remember is a challenge about whether or not the government has made a constitutionally sound "decision" that we should leave the EU. It's the argument of David Wolchover, a link to which you can find on the side bar of this blog. The case went to the High Court on 12th June where it was dismissed, as I noted the following day. You can now see the full judgement HERE.

ANOTHER WHITE PAPER

Another White Paper was announced yesterday (HERE) setting out details of the way we will implement the withdrawal agreement. The actual WP itself is HERE. Confusingly, the new bill is to be called the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, this follows the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. It's hard to keep up with these legislative acts plus the steady stream of Statutory Instruments that are coming out like applying bits of Polyfilla to the thousands of cracks appearing in our statute book as a result of Brexit.

BREXITY COMPLEXITY

The government published some "Information about the Withdrawal Bill" on the DEXEU website recently (HERE). I don't know how this is all seen in the legal profession but to a mere layman like me it looks incredibly complicated. There is an overview of the bill itself plus a fact sheet on converting and preserving law which says:

ERG - STUPID BUT DETERMINED MEN

The ERG (European Research Group), the shadowy party-within-a-party of right wing extreme Eurosceptic Tory MPs are, in my opinion, all stupid men, led by Jacob Rees-Mogg who is the stupidest of them all, as we know. But this doesn't make them harmless. They are determined to get us out of the EU under the harshest and most damaging conditions.

BREXIT ANOTHER BIT OF A PROBLEM?

Ever heard of a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT)? What about Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) tribunals? No? I'm not surprised, it's a bit esoteric for most people but it might not be soon. This article HERE from 2017 explains that these arrangements are about enabling organisations or people who invest in a territory to be reassured that the government of that territory won't take an action that negatively impacts their "legitimate expectations" when the investment was made. Sounds a bit remote doesn't it? What's it got to do with Brexit? 

DISAPPOINTING DAY

I watched some of the debate in the House of Commons yesterday afternoon. The votes on the Lord's amendments were going the government's way, albeit after they have had to give ground (or perhaps not) on the meaningful vote, so it was a profoundly depressing time. The one bright spot was Ken Clarke's contribution, as usual a masterful speech full of common sense and logical thinking, he debunked to much laughter the idea that Brussels didn't know the government was divided on many issues!

LEGAL MATTERS

As parliament begins a series of debates about the Lord's amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill, today and tomorrow (which I expect the government to win unfortunately) I thought I should remind you that there are still a couple of legal challenges to Brexit. One of them begins today at the High Court to determine if the Article 50 notification was legal. The case page is HERE.

LEGAL MATTERS RUMBLE ON

The Article 50 challenge to the notification that Theresa May sent over a year ago is about to hit the news. The Independent picked up the story HERE. This is the Wolchover argument, that there has never been a "constitutional" decision to leave the EU. The case was filed on Friday in the High Court and is bound to cause absolute fury in the pro Brexit press. The case is due to be heard on 12th June.

ANNUL THE REFERENDUM?

John Danzig has a post on his blog (HERE) asking if the 2016 referendum result should be annulled. He has looked at something called the Venice Commission, an advisory body to the Council of Europe  - a human rights organisation founded in 1949 and not to be confused with the EU although all EU member states are also Council members.

WAS THE REFERENDUM ADVISORY OR NOT?

The old chestnut keeps coming up about the referendum and whether or not it represents the actual, final, legal and constitutional "decision" to leave the EU - or was it just advisory? This is important and is about to be tested again (in June) in the courts. Michael Howard was on The Daily Politics recently claiming the government "delegated" the referendum decision to the people. Richard Tice (HERE), the co-chair of Leave means Leave, says they "outsourced" the decision to the people. Neither are correct and it's surprising that they don't know the position.