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ARTICLE · 06 JULY 2018

Brexit: Why Court Challenges Aren't Working (Yet)

Travers Smith LLP
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Recent weeks have seen court rulings in a number of Brexit-related cases, several of which were crowd-funded by the Good Law Project, a pro-bono organisation which aims to...

European UnionGovernment, Public Sector
Jonathan Rush
Jonathan Rush
Hanna Bates-Martens
Hanna Bates-Martens
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Recent weeks have seen court rulings in a number of Brexit-related cases, several of which were crowd-funded by the Good Law Project, a pro-bono organisation which aims to hold the government to account through legal challenges. So far, most have not achieved their objectives. In this article, we summarise the outcome of three different claims and look at why – despite an early success in the Miller case on Article 50 – it has proved difficult to use the courts to challenge or clarify key aspects of Brexit.

1. Can the UK's Article 50 notice to leave the EU be revoked?

A cross-party group of Scottish politicians, supported by the Good Law Project, sought a definitive ruling on whether it is legally possible to revoke the withdrawal process begun by triggering Article 50 without the consent of the other EU member states. They hoped that the court would refer the matter to the Court of Justice of the European Union ("CJEU") for an opinion. This question is

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