2019 United Kingdom prorogation controversy

On 27 or 28 August 2019, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson advised Queen Elizabeth II to prorogue Parliament from a date between 9 and 12 September 2019 until the State Opening of Parliament on 14 October 2019. As a result, Parliament was suspended from 9 September until 24 September, when the prorogation was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court. Since Parliament was to be prorogued for five weeks and reconvene just 17 days before the United Kingdom's scheduled departure from the European Union on 31 October 2019, the move was seen by many opposition politicians and political commentators as a controversial and unconstitutional attempt by the prime minister to avoid parliamentary scrutiny of the Government's Brexit plans in the final weeks leading up to Brexit. Johnson and his Government defended the prorogation of Parliament as a routine political process that ordinarily follows the selection of a new prime minister and would allow the Government to refocus on a legislative agenda.

In early September 2019, judges in the High Court of Justice and the Outer House of the Court of Session (the English and Scottish civil courts of first instance) ruled that the matter was not subject to judicial review as it was a political decision. An appeal in the latter case to the Inner House of the Court of Session (Scotland's supreme civil court) overturned the Outer House verdict and ruled the advice was justiciable and unlawful, void and of no effect. To resolve the differences of opinion between the courts, both cases were appealed to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom which, on 24 September, ruled unanimously in R (Miller) v The Prime Minister and Cherry v Advocate General for Scotland upholding the ruling of the Inner House; consequently, the Order in Council ordering prorogation was quashed and Parliament was ruled not to have been prorogued. When Parliament resumed on the following day, the prorogation ceremony was expunged from the Journal of the House of Commons and business continued as if the prorogation never happened. On 8 October, Parliament was lawfully prorogued, this time for six days, to the desired date of 14 October.