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London’s High Court has thrown out a legal challenge against Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to suspend Parliament just before Britain is due to leave the European Union, but said the case could be taken to the UK Supreme Court for a final appeal.

Yesterday, the court rejected a case brought by campaigner Gina Miller and former Prime Minister, Sir John Major. “We have concluded that, whilst we should grant permission to apply for judicial review, the claim must be dismissed,” said Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett.

Also sitting in judgment were senior figures of Britain’s judiciary, Master of the Rolls Sir Terence Etherton and President of the Queen’s Bench Division,  Dame Victoria Sharp.

The ruling comes in the same week the prime minister’s legal team fought off a separate legal challenge in Scotland. Another hearing in Belfast’s Royal Courts of Justice was continuing yesterday. Miller – who successfully challenged the government at the High Court in 2016 over the triggering of the Article 50 process to start the Brexit countdown – had argued that Johnson’s advice to Queen Elizabeth II to “prorogue” Parliament for five weeks was an “unlawful abuse of power”.

The legal challenge has lost some impact after MPs voted this week to force Johnson to seek a three-month delay to the UK’s departure from the European bloc, rather than leave without a deal on October 31. The legislation was being debated by the upper house of Parliament yesterday and is expected to be approved.

“The basic thrust of the opposition moves which are going on in Parliament right now is that they don’t trust Boris Johnson not to try to somehow guarantee that Britain ‘crashes out’ in their words – that it leaves the EU on October 31 with no deal,” said Nadim Baba, reporting from London.

“So this so-called ‘delay bill’ which the House of Lords was debating yesterday – and we expect them to vote and pass it later on Friday -will force the prime minister to seek an extension to the Brexit process. That is something he said he would rather ‘die in a ditch’ than do, but it does seem that it will pass.”

The legal action at the High Court was contested by the prime minister, whose lawyers argued the advice given to the queen was not unlawful – and that in any event, Miller’s claim was purely “academic”.

The prime minister’s decision to prorogue Parliament is contrary to constitutional principle and constitutes an abuse of power,” Lord Pannick QC, representing Miller, told the judges during the  hearing.

“There is no justification for closing Parliament in this way and, accordingly, it represents an unjustified undermining of parliamentary sovereignty which is the bedrock of our constitution,” he argued.

Pannick said the prime minister’s advice to the queen was “extraordinary” – both because of the “exceptional length” of the suspension and because Parliament would be “silenced” during the critical period leading up to the October 31 Brexit deadline. – Al Jazeera