The Prime Minister’s recent announcement that Parliament would be prorogued, thereby severely curtailing the opportunity for parliamentary debate, raises important issues of constitutional principle and law, and also issues concerning fact and causation. They are examined in turn.
Constitutional Principle and Law
We begin with constitutional principle and law. We seek to decide whether the courts should intervene via judicial review, in order to prevent Parliament from being prorogued. We do not, however, begin with a clean slate. We look to case law where the courts have intervened to curtail prerogative power, discern the underlying principles, and then decide whether those are applicable to the case at hand.
Consider then the principal case law concerning constraints on prerogative power dating back to the seventeenth century. The constraints on prerogative power embodied in Proclamations, De Keyser and Miller all protect parliamentary sovereignty. Parliament is the legitimate legislator within the UK and…
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