Gina Miller and the last Gasp of Parliamentary Sovereignty?
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X17698650 |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| Author | Damian Chalmers |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
Editorial
Gina Miller and the last
Gasp of Parliamentary
Sovereignty?
Damian Chalmers*
Theresa May stated that the Brexit process was about the government carrying out what it
believed the people wanted. Gina Miller stated that the Brexit process was for Parliament to
decide. Fourteen of the United Kingdom’s most senior judges listened. Eleven agreed with Gina
Miller.
1
And the other three did not agree with Theresa May. They stated that the British
government could only trigger Brexit without fresh legislation because Parliament had provided
earlier authorization for the government to pursue Brexit, if it is so wished, in the original 1972
European Communities Act.
The reason for this overwhelming win for Gina Miller was that eleven judges, three in the lower
Division Court and eight in the UK Supreme Court, thought the case revolved around a simple
constitutional question.
Could the executive put in question a considerable body of law, realistically over 30%of all UK
law, which had been sanctioned by Parliament by triggering Article 50 TEU?
And they rightly said ‘no’. The United Kingdom is not a dictatorship. The tenor of the majority
decision was also that any Parliamentary authorization of the executive to abrogate rights legiti-
mated by the former must also be very clear. And that seems right as well in a parliamentary
democracy. Parliament should only allow others to curtail rights sanctioned by it in the most
explicit language.
Yet was this what Theresa May was concerned about? Turning the United Kingdom into a
dictatorship?
Of course, not. The judgment went the way it did because it could not take into account another
important constitutional narrative.
*National University of Singapore, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
Corresponding author:
Damian Chalmers, National University of Singapore, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.
Email: d.chalmers@lse.ac.uk
1. R v. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union ex parte Miller [2017] UKSC 5.
Maastricht Journal of European and
Comparative Law
2017, Vol. 24(1) 3–5
ªThe Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1023263X17698650
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