The Supreme Court decision on the Article 50 Case

In November 2016, in a case brought by two private citizens, the High Court ruled that the government could not invoke Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union without a parliamentary vote. This created a situation in which, potentially, the initiation of the maximum two-year process of negotiation leading to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU could have been delayed or even blocked.

Gina Miller The Woman who took on the government and won twice.

With its timetable for Brexit seemingly under threat, the government appealed to the Supreme Court. In January 2017, in the most high-profile case to reach the UK’s highest court, the Supreme Court upheld the judgement of the High Court. By a majority of eight to three (the first time that all 11 Supreme Court justices had sat together on a case), it determined that only Parliament had the right to make the decision of ‘momentous significance’ that will take the country out of the EU. Although, in the end, the anticipated damage to the Brexit process failed to materialise, the Supreme Court case was the most constitutionally significant in the UK for decades. This is because it reasserted the authority of Parliament and defined the boundaries of executive power. At the heart of the government’s argument in court was the claim that Article 50 could be invoked on the basis of the royal prerogative, which traditionally encompasses the conduct of foreign affairs including the signing of treaties. Ministers could therefore inform the European Council of the UK’s decision to withdraw from the EU (initiating Article 50) by the use of Crown powers and without the need to consult Parliament.