Editor’s Note: Policy Exchange’s Judicial Power Project invited a number of leading academics and practitioners to offer very short comments on the High Court’s decision on the process for triggering Article 50 in R(Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. We sought contributions from commentators with a range of views; some might be expected to be sympathetic to the Project’s central concerns, and others less so. In the days and weeks ahead, the Project will offer further and more detailed critiques of Miller.
Critiquing the High Court’s Decision
Parliamentary Sovereignty and the High Court’s Mistake
Richard Ekins
The High Court made a bad mistake of law in its judgment yesterday. But it was a mistake not a conspiracy and one into which the Court was led by counsel… Read more
“Intent of Parliament” Unsoundly Constructed
John Finnis
The judgment’s basic thesis: the ECA’s requirement that no new EU treaty-based obligations and rights be introduced into UK law without “Parliamentary control” implies… Read more
Miller: Statutory Interpretation and the Contestability of Constitutional Principles
Mark Elliott
Some of today’s press coverage of the judgment in Miller, accusing judges of acting undemocratically, is deplorable… Read more
Miller: Pointless and Futile
Stanley Brodie QC
The decision of the Court, and the case itself, in Miller v Secretary of State, seems pointless and futile… Read more
Miller and Constitutional Adjudication
Alison Young
I can understand the reaction that Miller is an example of ‘judicial activism’… Read more
Anticipating the Supreme Court’s Hearing
A Heady, Worrying Brew of Doctrines
Carl Gardner
Talk of this judgment creating a “constitutional crisis” are overdone. But I do think Miller is wrongly decided, and problematic. What’s gone wrong is… Read more
On Appearances and Disappearances
Simon Lee
If ever there is a case for interested ‘third’ parties to appear, or at least intervene through written submissions, now is the time for Professor John Finnis, the Judicial Power Project and other constitutional experts to present their views… Read more
Miller: The Bigger Picture
Mixing the Old and the New in Miller
Graham Gee
Irrespective of whether you agree with the judgment – and, for many of the reasons detailed by other contributors, I regard it as mistaken – there is something slightly quizzical about how the High Court answered the question…
Parliament and the People: A Cautionary Tale
Fergal Davis
The decision in in R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union rested on the Sovereignty of the Parliament at Westminster…
Parliament Should Have Been Left to Look After Itself
Sir Stephen Laws
The notion that Parliament needs the courts’ help to manage its relationship with Government actually undermines Parliamentary Sovereignty and wrongly puts unaccountable judges in overall control… Read more
Questions Old and New: Miller, Representative Democracy and the Rule of Law?
Lisa Burton Crawford
Miller reorientates our attention: away from the relationship between judicial and legislative power towards the relationship between the legislature and the executive… Read more