No, you are confusing the Houses of Parliament with parliament itself. Parliament is not the Commons.
Because Parliament has been prorogued for longer than 5 weeks, and for purely political reasons, in the past with no complaints. This has now changed.
That’s quite possibly true - but in general the courts don’t make decisons based on principle but on law and precedent. Which is why this case is so important. The court has made an unprecedented interpretation of common law, based on principle. It has the right to do so, of course - that, after all, is where common law and precedent come from - but it’s certainly a massive decision.
The prerogative of the Monarch to prorogue Parliament, on the advise of the PM, has been given greater limits than previously.
At the absolute most, they weakly opposed it. They insisted that Paliament must sit on (if I remember the dates correctly) September 9th and October 15th, and then rejected the chance to have an election, which would have negated the prorogation. They also made no attempt to challenge the prorogation with any sort of bill or motion, binding or otherwise.
ETA Individual MPs strongly opposed prorogation, but that’s not the same as Parliament doing so.
On those other occasions, parliament agreed to the prorogation. It wasn’t for the purpose of undermining parliamentary sovereignty or scrutiny. That’s the difference.
No it hasn’t. The proroguing of parliament has previously been within the law. This time it was unlawful. Nothing has changed.
The limits - since 1611 - have been that “the King hath no prerogative, but that which the law of the land allows him”.
As someone not from the UK, it seems to me that giving the PM the power to shut down parliament when he does not want them to inconvenience him, is more in line with a Latin American governance style.
I don’t want to continue arguing with people who have not read the judgment and are raising points which have already been fully and clearly dealt with in the judgment.
Bercow says the Commons will sit at 11.30am tomorrow. He has spoken to all party leaders or their representatives.
There will be no PMQs tomorrow as there is no time to prepare, but MPs can table urgent questions, table motions calling for emergency debates, and ministers can make statements.
I’ve read the judgement, and interestingly it makes very little reference to precedent for proroguing Parliament. The basis of the judgement is that the PM provided no reason for the prorogation, and therefore it’s invalid.
Expecting the Monarch and/or the PM to provide reasons for use their prerogative is new, and is a major constitutional change. It may well be a good one, and it may well be a change that is necessary due to constituational contradictions, but it is still a massive change.
Don’t mistake the claim that this is new and unprecedented for a claim that it was the wrong decision. But this is clearly not business as usual.
As an outsider, I think it’s safe to say that it hasn’t been business as usual in the UK for a few years now.
I have read the judgement, and also the authorities citied. The later cases, where perogrative was set aside are distinguished by the fact that in each of those cases, there was a statute in the field already. Not the case here.
Steophan, you quoted point 61. I suggest you read points 55-60 first.
“The first question, therefore, is whether the Prime Minister’s action had the effect of frustrating or preventing the constitutional role of Parliament in holding the Government to account.” …
“The answer is that of course it did. This was not a normal prorogation in the run-up to a Queen’s Speech.” …
“Such an interruption in the process of responsible government might not matter in some circumstances. But the circumstances here were, as already explained, quite exceptional.” …
“The next question is whether there is a reasonable justification for taking action which had such an extreme effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy.” …
I’ve read the whole thing. The court has decided that, in these extraordinary circumstances, an unprecedented view must be taken of the constitution. Which is a major advantage of having a constitution based on common law, in many ways, but it doesn’t automatically follow from that that this judgement won’t have some negative consequences in the future.
Indeed, but this is an escalation of that… At least in my opinion. I think the disagreement in this thread about what has actually happened, let alone what will come of it, show that.
What this ruling says is that the Prime Minister is not above Parliamentary Sovereignty, and he is not above the law. He can’t ignore the principles of the British constitution that have been in place for centuries.
The only reason this hasn’t happened before, is that no previous Prime Minister has ever tried to ignore Parliament and treat it with such contempt before. There has always been a presumption that the Prime Minister will ‘do the decent thing’, and generally that has been the case.
This is a victory for the rule of law over an attempt at autocracy. It can have only positive consequences for the future.
While I generally agree with your interpretation, the phrase “it can have only positive consequences for the future” has the distinctive knell of Famous Last Words…
The ruling makes it harder for Government to govern. That is not an unalloyed positive result, but it is certainly a good thing with this particular government. The potential negative is that if a future Government acts in a percieved emergency without consulting Parliament that its actions will be overruled by a court, leading to the emergency getting worse.
That may well be a reasonable price to pay, but ugh is still a price.
There’s also the fact that Parliament is significantly to blame for things getting to this stage, by continuing to show confidence in Johnson’s Government, and by rejecting his call for an early election.
I don’t see where in the judgement the court says that it’s decided to take an unprecedented view.
You may find their view unprecedented. (I couldn’t possibly etc. etc.) But the court does, as I read it, make the effort to ground their decision in precedent. Para 50 lays out the rationale on which the Court will decide whether the prorogation is unlawful. But Paras 38-49 lay out the argument for reaching this decision, and make a lot of reference to the precedent for both the two constitutional Parliamentary roles in play (sovereignty and government accountability) and to the cases which demonstrate that government attempts to infringe on these roles through prerogative powers must have a reasonable justification.
For that to be an unprecedented view implies that until now the British constitution permitted the government to use prorogation powers purely and solely to indefinitely evade Parliamentary scrutiny and negate Parliamentary sovereignty. I don’t think that was anybody’s understanding of the constitution last week.
I thought Speaker Bercow had resigned. Or was his resignation effective upon the conclusion of this term of Parliament, and he’s back on the job again, since BoJo’s prorogation was struck down?
Johnson’s call for an early election was a blatantly transparent stalling technique designed to run out the Brexit clock. Even Labour weren’t stupid enough to fall for that one.
Bercow’s resignation was not effective immediately; IIRC he said he would not run for re-election or remain in post past 31 October. So he’s still in the big chair for the time being.
His resignation was effective the earlier of 31st October or the date of a General Election.