Full hearing on 6 September
A legal challenge attempting to stop Prime Minister Boris Johnson from suspending parliament in a bid to push through a no deal Brexit will be heard before the 31 October deadline, a Scottish court has confirmed.
As reported by Legal Cheek last month, the legal petition, backed by more than 70 MPs and peers, is seeking to get the Court of Session in Edinburgh to rule that suspending parliament so that the UK leaves the EU without a deal is “unlawful and unconstitutional”.
And it’s good news for pro-EU campaigners. The Scottish court today decided that it will hold a full hearing of the case on 6 September. A judgment is expected in advance of the Brexit deadline on 31 October.
The case, supported by the Good Law Project, a not for profit organisation launched by Jolyon Maugham QC, comes after Johnson refused to rule out “proroguing” parliament to prevent MPs blocking a no deal Brexit.
Ahead of today’s hearing, Devereux Chambers barrister Maugham said:
“A man with no mandate seeks to cancel parliament for fear it will stop him inflicting on an unwilling public an outcome they did not vote for and do not want. That’s certainly not democracy and I expect our courts to say it’s not the law.”
A legal letter reveals that the case invokes a number of ancient Scottish constitutional laws including the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath, George Buchanan’s 1579 De iure regni apud Scotos and Samuel Rutherford’s 1644 Lex Rex.