On November 3, 2016 the UK High Court handed down a
ruling1 preventing the UK government from triggering
Article 50 TFEU – the EU legislation triggering the start of
the administrative procedure for the UK's exit from the EU
– without parliamentary approval.
Following the referendum on June 23, 2016, where the UK voted to
leave the EU, Prime Minister Theresa May and the UK government
announced that they would use the Crown's prerogative powers to
trigger Article 50 as early as March 2017. The use of prerogative
powers would allow the government to trigger Article 50 without the
approval of the UK parliament. Claimants argued that the
government's position had no basis in law, in particular under
the UK's European Communities Act 1972 and that the
government's position was contrary to fundamental
constitutional principles of sovereignty of parliament.
