Legal Advice: Prorogation Debate

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Department: Attorney General

Legal Advice: Prorogation

Rachael Maskell Excerpts
Wednesday 25th September 2019

(5 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Geoffrey Cox Portrait The Attorney General
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I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who has put his finger right on it. This continuing artificial prolongation of this dead Parliament is undermining people’s confidence—[Interruption.] I know why Opposition Members are not doing it; they know they will not survive, but they have to have the courage of their convictions, get on it, and put it to the country.

Rachael Maskell Portrait Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
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The Attorney General is trying to exonerate his and the Government’s determinations by saying, at the Dispatch Box, that the Supreme Court created new law. Is it not the role of the Supreme Court to interpret existing law, and is that not the action it took?

Geoffrey Cox Portrait The Attorney General
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That is, of course, one function of a court’s role, but a court is perfectly entitled to develop the common law. I do not think there can be any doubt that that is what happened in this case.