The European Court of Justice is back in the headlines this morning. Its Advocate General, Manuel Campos Sanchez-Bordona, has declared that the UK might be able to cancel Brexit by revoking Article 50 unilaterally. So is that it settled? Not at all: nothing, with the ECJ, is ever that simple. In fact, the whole episode is a good chance to look at the ECJ and the way it works – and then ask if this is the kind of supreme court that Britain really wants to stay under.
Take what happened this morning. We learn via a three-page press release what Sanchez-Bordona thinks about Article 50. An hour after that the ECJ released a one-minute video clip (not in English). An hour after that we got the legal opinion. So let’s look at that.
- Paras 6 to 10: the Advocate General relies on International law. That’s extremely curious, as the EU treaties expressly exclude international law.
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