Scottish Appeal Judges Hold Off Sending Brexit Extension Letter

(Bloomberg) --

Scottish judges held off intervening in the Brexit furor by postponing a decision on whether they needed to commit to sending a letter requesting an extension, giving Prime Minister Boris Johnson a temporary legal victory.

The judges ruled Wednesday that Johnson hadn’t acted unlawfully but left the door open to a new case if he refused to get the extension by Oct. 19. Under a power peculiar to Scottish law, known as the nobile officium, Scottish courts can intervene in any way they see fit to fix an outcome.

The lawsuit was brought by some of the same challengers who’d previously won a ruling that Johnson’s suspension of Parliament was unlawful and should be quashed. They’d argued that the prime minister couldn’t be trusted and appeared to be making defiant statements outside the court that were at odds with his pledge to the judges.

At the hearing in Edinburgh, Johnson’s lawyers had promised he will obey a law, known as the Benn Act, that forces him to postpone Brexit if he can’t reach a deal by Oct. 19. His attorneys had said that nothing prevented the government from continuing to oppose the extension.

In a usual case, the judges said, they would have dismissed the appeal. They said they would reconsider the issue on Oct. 21 “since the circumstances may change over the next 10 days and to avoid the petitioners having to raise new proceeding of a similar nature in changed circumstances.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Rodney Jefferson in Edinburgh at r.jefferson@bloomberg.net;Jonathan Browning in London at jbrowning9@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Christopher Elser, Peter Chapman

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