Kick-starting Brexit requires parliamentary approval, High Court rules

Parliament alone has the power to trigger Brexit by notifying Brussels of the UK’s intention to leave the European Union, the high court has ruled.

The judgment, delivered by the lord chief justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, is likely to slow the pace of Britain’s departure from the EU and is a huge setback for Theresa May, who had insisted the government alone would decide when to trigger the process, The Guardian report.

“The most fundamental rule of the UK constitution is that parliament is sovereign,” the High Court ruled.

”The court does not accept the argument put forward by the government. There is nothing in the 1972 European Communities Act to support it. In the judgment of the court the argument is contrary both to the language used by parliament in the 1972 act, and to the fundamental principles of the sovereignty of parliament and the absence of any entitlement on the part of the crown to change domestic law by the exercise of its prerogative powers.”

The Guardian reports that the politically-charged decision is, however, likely to be appealed to the supreme court, where space has been cleared in the justices’ schedules for a hearing early next month.

By handing responsibility for initiating Brexit over to MPs, the three senior judges – Lord Thomas; the master of the rolls, Sir Terence Etherton, and Lord Justice Sales – have ventured on to constitutionally untested ground.

The legal dispute focused on article 50 of the treaty on European Union, which states that any member state may leave “in accordance with its own constitutional requirements” – an undefined term that has allowed both sides to pursue rival interpretations.