New court case challenging prorogation of parliament seeks answers about prime minister’s powers

The first lawsuit challenging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to prorogue Parliament is a plea for the courts to clarify the limits of the prime minister’s power, according to one of the lawyers who launched the challenge last week.

The suit, filed in federal court on Tuesday, “poses a question that’s never really been asked before,” said James Manson, a senior lawyer with Charter Advocates Canada, which is representing the plaintiffs. “What is the power of the prime minister or the executive in our system of government to suspend parliament? Are there limits to that power? And if there are limits, what are they?”

Manson argues that these boundaries must be demarcated regardless of which party is in power. “It’s not a political issue,” he says. “I don’t think it matters that it’s the Liberals who happen to be the government right now… it (applies to) whoever happens to be in office.”

Manson was one of the lawyers who filed the suit on behalf of David Joseph MacKinnon and Aris Lavranos, two residents of Nova Scotia. Backed by the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, the lawsuit seeks an expedited order to set aside Trudeau’s prorogation of Parliament.

The lawsuit argues that Trudeau’s decision is unjustified and frustrates Parliament’s ability to deal with pressing matters, including the fallout from incoming US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he plans to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods.

The lawsuit also alleges that the Prime Minister’s decision “is part of a strategy designed specifically to disrupt the business of Parliament and prevent the publicly stated intention of a majority in the House of Commons to move a motion of no confidence in the government.”

A day after the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms announced the challenge, the nonprofit Democracy Watch announced that it intended to also file a lawsuit challenging the parliamentary prorogation. In a press release, Democracy Watch claimed that Trudeau’s move is “clearly in the self-interest of the Liberal Party and comes at a time when opposition parties clearly intend to vote no confidence in the government.”

Democracy Watch said its argument will rely in part on a unanimous 2019 ruling by the UK Supreme Court, which found then-prime minister Boris Johnson’s decision to prorogue parliament to be unlawful.

Friday, Manson said Canadian lawyer that the British decision is “obviously not binding on us here in Canada … it is really the only case where this issue has been dealt with by a commonwealth court.”

He adds: “I think it’s fair to say that the principles that they talked about in the British case… really are also principles that we have in our constitution, and that’s the principles of parliamentary sovereignty and also parliamentary accountability.”

While Manson acknowledges that the federal court may conclude that Trudeau had the authority to prorogue Parliament, the lawyer says, “it’s important for us to at least know the answer or how much power is available to the prime minister.”

A representative for the Privy Council Office declined to comment.