The case for revoking the A50 notification

By Prof Phil Syrpis, Professor of EU Law (University of Bristol Law School)

This blog is written after the European Council conclusions were agreed yesterday, on 21 March, on the assumption, which is widely shared, that the EU’s extension plan is accepted by the UK.  It is in two parts. In the first, I explain the nature of the choices ahead. In the second, I seek to make a positive case for revoking the A50 notification.

The choices ahead

As has been the case for a while now, there are four possible outcomes to the Brexit process.

  1. The UK leaves the EU under the Withdrawal Agreement
  2. The UK leaves the EU with no deal
  3. The UK leaves the EU under a different deal
  4. The UK does not leave the EU

The first option is Theresa May’s preferred outcome: that we leave the EU under the terms set by the Withdrawal Agreement. Under the terms of the conclusions, the European Council agreed to an extension until 22 May ‘provided the withdrawal agreement is approved by the House of Commons next week’. The European Council reiterates that there can be no reopening of the Withdrawal Agreement, adding that ‘any unilateral comment, statement or other act should be compatible with the letter and the spirit of the Withdrawal Agreement’. This looks very much like the ‘technical extension’ Theresa May asked for in her letter of 20 March, with the 22 May date chosen so that the UK leaves the EU before the elections to the European Parliament occur, and with a clear indication that no sugar-coating of the backstop will be tolerated. (more…)

Why a no-deal Brexit on 29 March is unconstitutional, not the “legal default”

By Rose Slowe LLM, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Bristol Law School. Author on EU Law and Barrister at Foundry Chambers.

Leaving the EU without a deal on 29 March 2019 is not the “legal default”, as has been repeatedly, but wrongly, asserted. It would, in fact, be in violation of the supreme law at both the domestic and supranational level, namely the UK constitution and EU Treaties (or more broadly, the General Principles of Community Law which includes ECJ jurisprudence alongside the Treaties). As such, without an Act of Parliament authorising Brexit in whatever form, the legal default is that the Article 50 notice issued will lapse, if not unilaterally revoked.

Article 50(1) of the Treaty on European Union (‘TEU’) provides that a Member State may decide to withdraw from the EU in accordance with ‘its own constitutional requirements’. The Supreme Court, the highest judicial authority responsible for interpreting our unwritten constitution, confirmed in R (on the application of Miller and another) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2017] UKSC 5, that, as a matter of UK constitutional law, only an Act of Parliament can authorise, and give effect to, changes in domestic law and existing legal rights. The Miller litigation, while lacking in a critical respect, as discussed elsewhere, was an essential source of legal certainty in terms of our constitutional requirements and, specifically, the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty as it pertains to Brexit; judicial clarification at the highest level of legal authority. Of significance, the majority held that the European Communities Act 1972 has rendered EU law a source of domestic law and, now that it has acquired that status, removing it, wholly or in part, is a matter on which Parliament has to legislate. (more…)

Land, law and life: the unexpected interest of medieval tenancy by the curtesy

By Prof Gwen Seabourne, Professor of Legal History (University of Bristol Law School)

Window from St Mary’s church, Ross-on-Wye, Joseph with Jesus.

Even for those who enjoy spending their time with historical legal records, plea roll entries relating to medieval land law cases may not be high on a list of interesting areas to investigate. The vocabulary is often off-putting and the records somewhat formulaic and repetitive. Nevertheless, patient digging in these apparently monotonous sources can turn up information on some big, important issues of medieval thought and belief. My recent research on an area of medieval land law, published in the Journal of Legal History,[i] sheds some light on one of the biggest questions of all (in the medieval period or subsequently): what is life?

Juries and lawyers sometimes had to wrestle with questions of the presence and proof of life in cases involving tenancy by the curtesy. This was the widower’s life interest in land, following the death of his wife. Crucially, in order to qualify for this right, the widower had to have produced live offspring with his wife. Because of this requirement, medieval courts and lawyers had to make decisions in some very difficult cases in which there was doubt and disagreement as to whether a baby, now definitely not alive, had ever been alive. How did medieval people distinguish life from its absence, the fleetingly alive from those who were (in modern English) stillborn? (more…)