The UK Supreme Court took less than 3 months, since the high court verdict on 3 November 2016 (read analysis here), to pass its judgment on whether Brexit could be triggered without parliamentary approval.
Though a very high-profile and priority case, it’s still rather impressive decision making by the venerable UK court system.
Read the judgment and summary below:
And here’s a BBC explainer of what will happen next in this constitutionally exciting time, as well as the New York Times report:
Keep reading at New York Times‘Brexit’ Ruling Reveals Cracks in Britain’s Centuries-old Institutions
By KATRIN BENNHOLDIt remains unclear whether Prime Minister Theresa May’s plans or timetable for taking Britain out of the European Union will be altered by the Supreme Court’s ruling on Tuesday that she must secure Parliament’s approval before beginning the process. Most analysts, even those who opposed “Brexit,” as the departure from the bloc is known, doubt that it will.
And Mrs. May had already said in her speech on Brexit last week that Parliament would have a vote on whether to accept the final deal negotiated with the European Union.
But the ruling Tuesday — which included a decision to deny the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish legislatures a veto in the matter — has brought to the fore some ancient tensions in Britain’s democracy, which has somehow made it through the centuries with an unequal union of four nations, an unelected upper house of Parliament and without a written constitution. These tensions may ultimately have far greater impact than a ruling that was widely anticipated.