Supreme Court to rule on Boris Johnson’s parliament suspension tomorrow
The Supreme Court will announce its decision on whether or not Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s move to prorogue parliament was illegal at 10.30am tomorrow.
The UK’s highest court will reveal its ruling on the matter after hearing arguments for and against Johnson’s five-week suspension of parliament last week.
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“The hand-down will be tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 10.30am,” a note from the Supreme Court read.
Remainer Gina Miller has argued, through her lawyer Lord Pannick, that Johnson’s move to suspend parliament until 14 October was
Lord Pannick said that if the court found the prorogation to be unlawful, MPs should return to parliament “as soon as possible next week”.
Meanwhile government lawyers had argued that the Supreme Court’s job was to consider the length of the suspension of parliament, rather than the suspension itself.
Pannick had urged the 11 judges to “let parliament sort out the problem”, after Johnson faced accusations he had damaged MPs’ abilities to scrutinise his Brexit plans.
Under the terms of the prorogation, MPs would resume their seats in the Commons on 14 October, just two weeks before the UK’s 31 October departure date.
The Supreme Court posted on Twitter: “The judgment in ‘R (on behalf of Miller) v The Prime Minister’ and ‘Cherry and others v Advocate General for Scotland’ will be handed down at 10.30am on Tuesday 24 September in Courtroom 1 .”
The court increased its usual number of judges from nine to 11, led by Lady Hale, to rule over two conflicting verdicts on Johnson’s prorogation.
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The UK High Court had ruled that the suspension of parliament was a purely political matter that courts could not involve themselves in.
Scottish judges, meanwhile, ruled that the prorogation was illegal, and said that courts could intervene to prevent it.