The opening session of the epic Supreme Court hearing into whether Boris Johnson misled the Queen and broke the law when proroguing parliament did not disappoint.
Because Lord Pannick, for one of the plaintiffs Gina Miller, captured with the clinical precision of a brain surgeon quite what is at stake.
Summing up, he asked the law ladies and lords to consider that if they were to conclude there is no case for the PM to answer, a future PM might well feel licensed to suspend parliament for six months or a year, as and when MPs become bothersome, rather than “just” the five weeks Johnson has chosen to shut down parliament?
What is at stake, Pannick implied, is the role and power of the courts to prevent a PM choosing to become an elected dictator.
The difficulty, Pannick conceded, is that because what Johnson did is “unique”, there is no precise legal precedent for the judges to rely on when making their eventual ruling on Friday or Monday.
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