Re:Supreme Court: Suspending Parliament was unlawful, judges...
by rtempaccount1 on Tuesday September 24, 2019 @09:50AM
(#21060102)
I'm afraid I'd have to disagree with this analysis.
The government's originally stated aim of the prorogation, was that it was a standard mechanism prior to a queen's speech.
The court has taken the opinion that the real aim of this prorogation was instead to restrict parliamentary debate of the Brexit process and that this is unlawful.
Looking at historic prorogation lengths (https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Sum...) we can see that "Between 1930 and 2017, the mean average was about 5 calendar days, a median average of about 4 calendar days.", so it's clear that this prorogation was considerably longer than usual.
Your suggestion then that there's nothing out of the ordinary, seems unlikely to hold and indeed the government's own lawyers didn't even try that line of argument during the case, as far as I'm aware.
'Lord Keen said previous prorogations of Parliament - including in 1930 and 1948 - had "clearly been employed" when governments wanted to "pursue a particular political objective", adding: "They are entitled to do so."'
so the government was arguing a) that the matter was not one for the courts and b) that even if it was, the government was entitled to use prorogation for political ends.
I'm actually mildly surprised that b) didn't hold. allowing a) would have set a very dangerous precedent.
The government's originally stated aim of the prorogation, was that it was a standard mechanism prior to a queen's speech.
The court has taken the opinion that the real aim of this prorogation was instead to restrict parliamentary debate of the Brexit process and that this is unlawful.
Looking at historic prorogation lengths (https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Sum...) we can see that "Between 1930 and 2017, the mean average was about 5 calendar days, a median average of about 4 calendar days.", so it's clear that this prorogation was considerably longer than usual.
Your suggestion then that there's nothing out of the ordinary, seems unlikely to hold and indeed the government's own lawyers didn't even try that line of argument during the case, as far as I'm aware.
To quote https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49722087
'Lord Keen said previous prorogations of Parliament - including in 1930 and 1948 - had "clearly been employed" when governments wanted to "pursue a particular political objective", adding: "They are entitled to do so."'
so the government was arguing a) that the matter was not one for the courts and b) that even if it was, the government was entitled to use prorogation for political ends.
I'm actually mildly surprised that b) didn't hold. allowing a) would have set a very dangerous precedent.