LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson abused his powers by suspending parliament from next week until shortly before Britain leaves the European Union, London’s High Court was told on Thursday.
Johnson announced at the end of August that he would suspend parliament from mid-September to mid-October, just before Britain is due to exit the European Union on Oct. 31, to allow the government to announce a new legislative program.
David Pannick, a lawyer representing the campaigner Gina Miller, told the court that in the last 40 years parliament had never been suspended for so long.
Pannick said comments from Johnson showed that an important part of his reasoning was that parliament might say or do something that impeded the government’s Brexit plans.
He cited Johnson’s note to aides on Aug. 16 dismissing the September gathering in the House of Commons as a “rigmarole” and saying he did not see “anything shocking” about suspending parliament.
“It breaches the legal principle of parliamentary sovereignty,” he said. “What the prime minister is not entitled to do is to close parliament for five weeks at such a critical time without justification.”
The legal challenge has lost some of its relevance after lawmakers voted this week to force Johnson to seek a three-month delay to Brexit rather than leaving without a deal on Oct. 31 and there could soon be a general election.
Pannick said the case was not about whether Britain should leave the EU or on what terms, nor was it a criticism of Queen Elizabeth who agreed to the government’s request for a suspension.
He said Johnson’s case was that there was no precedence for such legal action.
“Our response is that there is no precedence because no prime minister in modern history has abused his power” to advise the Queen to suspend parliament for so long, he added.
Miller, the campaigner who mounted a successful legal challenge to former Prime Minister Theresa May’s government over its authority to leave the EU without a vote in parliament, is seeking a judicial review.
Her case is supported by former Conservative Prime Minister John Mayor and Shami Chakrabarti, the opposition Labour Party’s top legal adviser.
On Wednesday, a Scottish court ruled that Johnson’s decision on the matter was not one for judges to decide. A similar legal bid in Northern Ireland will be heard on Friday.
