Legal Advice: Prorogation Debate

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Department: Attorney General

Legal Advice: Prorogation

Geraint Davies Excerpts
Wednesday 25th September 2019

(4 years, 7 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Geoffrey Cox Portrait The Attorney General
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I think I understood the hon. Gentleman’s question, but I do not agree with its premise.

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
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The Attorney General has accepted the Supreme Court’s judgment that the Government acted illegally in closing down democracy. Does he accept that his fundamental duty is to uphold the rule of law and democracy, not to fan the flames of hatred, pitting the people against the courts and democracy on the road to fascism, as he appears to be doing today by making fun of the Supreme Court and saying that the justices are making things up as they go along? We make the law, they interpret the law, and he and all of us should obey the law.

Geoffrey Cox Portrait The Attorney General
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The hon. Gentleman really needs to listen more closely to what I say. The Supreme Court was perfectly entitled to reach the view it did. It did so by reasoned decision making and it was entirely within the scope of its jurisdiction, but there is no question but that in doing so it developed the common law. That is all I have said, and that is what courts often do.