Roundup: Legal minefield, war of words beckon in battle of Brexit

Theresa May's government does not have the power to trigger Britain's exit from the European Union (EU), the lawyer representing wealthy businesswoman Gina Miller told the Supreme Court in London Wednesday.

After listening to almost two days of legal arguing by government lawyers who insisted the prime minister did have the power to start the process without the go-ahead from politicians in parliament, the 11 judges started to hear the opposing view.

To outsiders it may seem strange that an individual not holding any public office has the right to start a legal process that could have major legal and constitutional consequences.

So when May's government announced it intended to start the legal process to exit the EU, it led to open warfare among members of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Critics of May's exit program claimed it flew in the face of parliamentary sovereignty. But it was London based wealth management expert Miller, who self-funded her legal challenge in the High Court. She used the law to ask the court to judicially review the government decision and rule that parliament must be involved. Miller accepts that the case as an exceptional constitutional significance and is centered on the sovereignty of parliament.

The three judges agreed, prompting May's government to take the case to the highest court in the country in a bid to have the earlier decision overturned.

The spotlight swung Wednesday to Miller as she had her day in court, listening to her lawyer, Lord Pannick, a leading constitutional lawyer, fight her corner. She will not give evidence in the court, but sit quietly as her legal team make her case to the judges.

With clinical precision, citing examples of law going back centuries, Pannick claimed that May and her government do not have the power to act on Brexit without consulting parliament.

He said that when the British parliament legislated in the 1972 European Communities Act to take Britain into what was then the European Economic Community (EEC) it did not to create ministerial "prerogative" power to sweep away membership of the EEC. Government ministers, he said, cannot use their executive prerogative power to frustrate legislation.

Although the hearing involves hour upon hour of intricate legal submissions and arguments, using terms and language usually heard only with courtrooms, the case is generating world-wide interest. People queue in the hope of getting one of the few seats in the public gallery to witness what is one of the most important cases ever to come before a British court.

The case will continue Wednesday with more arguments about who has the power over Britain's exit from the EU.

As the legal battle continues in the wood-paneled courthouse, just 200 meters away in the House of Commons, Members of Parliament (MPs) will have a debate which is generated by the main opposition Labor Party in a bid to force the government to give details of its plans for exiting the EU.

Early indications had been that a number of MPs from May's own Conservative benches planned to join Labor with the prospect of the prime minister facing her first defeat in the House of Commons.

That seems to have been averted by a last-minute move by May's government Tuesday night. Labor's Shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer has come forward with a call for debate Wednesday afternoon. It calls for details of the Brexit strategy before article 50, the exit process, is triggered.

May has always insisted she will not show her hand in advance, saying it would weaken British negotiators trying to strike a post-Brexit deal with Brussels.

May's government has said it will agree to publishing a plan. But in exchange it wants a commitment that Article 50 will be triggered by May's stated deadline of March 2017.

Starmer claimed the last minute intervention was a climb down by May's government.

It means that at one side of London's Parliament Square lawyers will continue their legal battle, and across the square politicians will have their own war of words. May hopes that a threatened rebellion by her own members will now be averted. Endit