Scottish judge temporarily denies request to halt parliament suspension
A Scottish judge on Friday temporarily denied a request to stop prime minister Boris Johnson from suspending parliament.
Lord Doherty was considering a request from 75 parliamentarians, who argued that Johnson's actions were illegal and unconstitutional. He did, however, agree to speed up the hearing and brought the case forward to next Tuesday.
“I’m not satisfied that it has been demonstrated that there’s a need for an interim suspension or an interim interdict (injunction) to be granted at this stage,” he said at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
“I’m going to move the substantive hearing forward to Tuesday. Weighing consideration in the balance, it’s in the interest of justice that it proceeds sooner rather than later.”
Johnson wanted to suspend parliament for five weeks ahead of the Queen's Speech on 14 October to stop MPs from preventing a no-deal Brexit.
The UK is due to leave the EU on 31 October.
In a separate case, former Conservative prime minister John Major joined anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller in an attempt to stop prorogation.