UK Supreme Court Rules Suspension of Parliament Unlawful

LONDON - In a unanimous decision Tuesday by the 11 U.K. Supreme Court justices, Boris Johnson's prorogue, or suspension of Parliament earlier this month, was ruled as an unlawful action.

This decision has rendered the prorogue null, (with no effect). Parliament resumed its activities yesterday.

U.K. Supreme court president Lady Hail said that, "The decision to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification." Johnson says that although he “strongly disagrees” with the ruling he will respect it.

On August 28th Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the UK, asked the head of the British monarchy, Queen Elizabeth II, to suspend Parliament. Parliament was then prorogued that Tuesday until mid-October. Due to how the government is set up, the Prime Minister has to first ask the Queen and explain his reasons before Parliament can be prorogued. Johnson said that this action was necessary to prepare for a new parliamentary session and legislative agenda.

In the following weeks, the highest civil court of Scotland met and found the Prime Minister’s actions to be unlawful, stating that he intentionally mislead the Queen in his reasons for the suspension of parliament. The court ruled that his motives were not to pave the way for new legislation, but to instead avoid scrutiny from Parliament on his Brexit Plan.

The UK is currently in the process of leaving the EU (European Union). The “Brexit” deal is a plan being carried out by Boris Johnson's administration. The plan is to reach a settlement with the EU by October 31st. However, if no deal can be reached by this time, then they will still proceed with no deal. Johnson fully supports this “no deal” scenario despite forecasts by official government reports such as the yellow hammer documents, predicting that such an action would cause significant food and gas shortages in the U.K..

The Civil Court's decision, however, was nullified by the British High Court in London dismissing a similar case, stating that the suspension was “purely political” and therefore not a matter for the courts. This left the country in a state of deadlock over the issue which was broken by the Supreme Court’s ruling Tuesday.

Despite this defeat, Johnson said he, “refused to be deterred” from getting on with, “an exciting and dynamic domestic agenda.” However, he may not be able to do so much longer seeing as many of the MP’s (members of parliament) have called for the Prime Minister to resign with some even saying that they would force him out if he did not leave on his own accord.