Brexit and Parliamentary Sovereignty

Abstract

This note addresses the implications of R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union for the legal principle of parliamentary sovereignty, and argues that the strong restatement of the latter is the most significant feature of the decision. The aim here is to show how traditional principle in the Dicey tradition has been strongly applied against the competing claims of EU law, the royal prerogative, the referendum and devolution. However, the note also argues that the claims relating to parliamentary sovereignty could have produced a different result and that the most compelling feature of the case was the argument that was not forcefully put by the Government, namely that Parliament had already provided sufficient authority for the triggering of Article 50.