Legal Advice: Prorogation
Debate between Geoffrey Cox and Caroline Johnson(4 years, 7 months ago)
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The Attorney General
The same consequences that flow from any good-faith implementation of advice that, at the time, is perfectly respectable and tenable advice, as this was. The fact of the matter is that the Government’s position was that the Prorogation was lawful and it was constitutional. That was the advice that the Government had, it was the advice that they gave to those who asked them, and the Supreme Court has decided we are wrong. We accept that, as I have said. It was a tenable, reasonable and respectable point of view.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
My constituents voted to leave the European Union, and many of them have written to me since yesterday’s judgment concerned about whether that will be delivered. Can my right hon. Friend the Attorney General confirm that there is nothing in this judgment that will prevent us from leaving the EU on 31 October, as they voted for in the referendum?
The Attorney General
There is nothing in this judgment that applies directly to the question of our departure from the European Union. As the justices made clear, this was a decision solely on the lawfulness of the Prorogation.
Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Position
Debate between Geoffrey Cox and Caroline Johnson(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
My current understanding is that if there is no deal, we will leave with no backstop on 29 March. If the EU and the Republic of Ireland have been content effectively to have a “leave without backstop with two years’ notice period” situation until now, what does the Attorney General think has changed that makes it unacceptable to them now? What does he consider their motivation for that to be? As an aside, can the Attorney General confirm that in extremis the Vienna convention can be used to allow treaties to be broken?
The Attorney General
The purpose of the backstop is to give the people of Northern Ireland and the Republic the confidence of knowing that there will not be any retreat from the current integration that has taken place between them over the past 20 years. That is a solemn commitment that is in the interests of Northern Ireland, as well as the Republic of Ireland. The question is how to achieve it. In the interim before another solution is found, which I firmly believe we shall find, this is the solution that would pertain were we ever to have to use it. As to the Vienna convention, there is no provision in the Vienna convention that allows us to terminate a treaty that has no termination clause and that is plainly intended to subsist until another event takes place.