UK BREXIT judgment

A case of interest to lawyers and clients alike wherever in the world, as regards the balance of power between a government and its Parliament, in this case in the UK.  This High Court ruling (3 November 2016) effectively defined the limits of UK government power by reiterating that Parliament is sovereign – it can create laws and only Parliament can take them away.

The BREXIT EU referendum was advisory – the “basic constitutional principles of parliamentary sovereignty and representative parliamentary democracy” in the UK “led to the conclusion that a referendum on any topic can only be advisory for the lawmakers in Parliament unless very clear language to the contrary is used in the referendum legislation in question“. “No such language is used in the 2015 Referendum Act“.